Given our track record for spending entire days inside museums, it was naive of me to think that we could achieve more than one sightseeing mission in Glasgow on Thursday.
The Kelvingrove Museum - a fine building.
The Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum was our first (and, as it turned out, only) port of call, where we didn't get off to a very efficient start by pausing for coffee before we got past the main entrance hall. We then spent an entire hour in the first room we entered. There are 22 rooms. Even with those that weren't of particular interest to us, it was clear that this place was going to fill the entire day.
Every art work had a little plaque next to it giving not just the usual title/artist/year, but also a snippet of information.
The entire layout of the museum made sense, apart from the Spitfire above the elephants and giraffe. In fact, the Spitfire was the white elephant amongst the exhibits in general.
As our departure time approached (I wanted to be on the 1650 train back to Bertie) we started doing our best (but still poor) impression of people who are able to whizz through an entire museum in ten minutes. That informed us that we could easily go back and spent another few hours there.
That return visit, plus the other things I'd like to see in Glasgow will have to wait for some unknown point in the future.
Back at Bertie we surveyed our options and made a snap decision to return to the Caravan Club Site at Strathclyde Country Park. That positioned me nicely yesterday (Friday) morning to nip out first thing for a trot around Strathclyde Loch.
It was nice to see so many other people walking and running on the same paths (even if most blanked my greetings), particularly on an overcast, frosty morning. In Spain and Germany it's perfectly normal for people to be out in such numbers, getting a bit of daily exercise without the excuse/incentive of having a dog to walk. In the UK, outside of London, it's not something that I'm used to seeing. It just goes to show: put in good infrastructure to allow people to walk by or around some water and they will use it!
Looking along the length of the loch
Some unreasonably large chunks of time have been lost over the last couple of days in trying to decide what we're doing next. Yesterday morning's session resulted in a decision to do Penrith parkrun today and after a ridiculously long time spent hunting, I eventually found somewhere relatively nearby to spend the night.
That's to where we headed, although not without a slightly alarming moment* on the M74 when, driving along in the rain, one of Bertie's windscreen wipers suddenly came adrift from its arm. Fortunately we are good Boy Scouts, and carry a spare, so once I'd taken a second to establish that the mount was broken, all I needed to do was to nip into the wardrobe, grab the new one* and fit it. With the knowledge of how dangerous hard shoulders are, I had that new wiper fitted with a speed that I reckon would have impressed even a Formula 1 pit crew. Not wanting to be without a spare for longer than necessary (both wipers are the same age, so the other could go the same way at any moment), within five minutes of regaining the main carriageway (Mick was driving) I had a replacement ordered, ready for collection in Penrith this morning.
Last night's kipping spot turned out to be perfect, giving us just a 20-minute drive to the parkrun location this morning. There, to Mick's dismay (considering he can't run at the moment) we discovered we had no TV signal for the rugby semi-final, but his dismay was shortlived when I downloaded the ITV App onto my phone and set it up ready for him to press the 'Play' button to set off the live streaming at kick off. I got back to Bertie twenty minutes or so through the first half to find that Mick had pressed 'Play' only then to be asked for a password. If it had been the other way around, I'm afraid I would have reset Mick's password without hesitation, but he was too polite to do that, so I found him watching the game via text updates on the BBC news website. As it happens, I also didn't know my password, so I had to reset it anyway, which allowed him to watch the rest of the match.
Off the top of my head, I think I've run 32 different parkrun courses. My favourite thus far has been Kräherwald in Stuttgart. The most attractive I've come across in the UK is Aviemore. At the bottom of the pile is Penrith, being two almost-dead-flat laps of some football fields.
It's not going to be an event I remember for the course, but for the 'what are the chances of that?!' occurrence just before the run. I was in the ladies' toilets, in a queue formed of just me and one other woman. We exchanged a few words about the weather (of course!), then after looking at me for a few moments, she asked if I was in the motorhome. "I thought I recognised you!" she exclaimed and in response to my blank look she explained that we had met in the car park of Aldi just over three weeks ago when she and her husband had knocked on Bertie's door to ask us about our experience of owning a Hymer B444.
With the rugby successfully won by England, and long after all other parkrunners had left, off we headed to Halfords to collect our windscreen wiper, whereafter another chunk of time was lost to the 'where next' question. All enthusiasm for the intended sightseeing had been lost due to the weather being cold, wet and miserable and Mick's leg isn't yet up for any rough walking. We opted for luxury instead - another campsite for mains power to fritter the rest of the day away with books, knitting and (hopefully - TV signal permitting) a bit of Strictly later.
(*I don't think I mentioned the equivalent alarming moment that occurred on our drive north three weeks or so ago, when on our way to the Falkirk Wheel we rounded a bend to find a motorhome (another Hymer, as it happens) coming towards us on our side of the road. After a few moments of both Mick & I wondering if we'd accidentally entered a one-way street the wrong way, the other vehicle moved onto the left carriageway and waved an apology. I just had time to notice the German number plates before we passed.)
* I'm glad we chose the wardrobe as a suitable place to store the spare windscreen wiper, making it so quickly and easily accessible from inside the vehicle.)
The Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum was our first (and, as it turned out, only) port of call, where we didn't get off to a very efficient start by pausing for coffee before we got past the main entrance hall. We then spent an entire hour in the first room we entered. There are 22 rooms. Even with those that weren't of particular interest to us, it was clear that this place was going to fill the entire day.
As our departure time approached (I wanted to be on the 1650 train back to Bertie) we started doing our best (but still poor) impression of people who are able to whizz through an entire museum in ten minutes. That informed us that we could easily go back and spent another few hours there.
That return visit, plus the other things I'd like to see in Glasgow will have to wait for some unknown point in the future.
Back at Bertie we surveyed our options and made a snap decision to return to the Caravan Club Site at Strathclyde Country Park. That positioned me nicely yesterday (Friday) morning to nip out first thing for a trot around Strathclyde Loch.
It was nice to see so many other people walking and running on the same paths (even if most blanked my greetings), particularly on an overcast, frosty morning. In Spain and Germany it's perfectly normal for people to be out in such numbers, getting a bit of daily exercise without the excuse/incentive of having a dog to walk. In the UK, outside of London, it's not something that I'm used to seeing. It just goes to show: put in good infrastructure to allow people to walk by or around some water and they will use it!
Some unreasonably large chunks of time have been lost over the last couple of days in trying to decide what we're doing next. Yesterday morning's session resulted in a decision to do Penrith parkrun today and after a ridiculously long time spent hunting, I eventually found somewhere relatively nearby to spend the night.
That's to where we headed, although not without a slightly alarming moment* on the M74 when, driving along in the rain, one of Bertie's windscreen wipers suddenly came adrift from its arm. Fortunately we are good Boy Scouts, and carry a spare, so once I'd taken a second to establish that the mount was broken, all I needed to do was to nip into the wardrobe, grab the new one* and fit it. With the knowledge of how dangerous hard shoulders are, I had that new wiper fitted with a speed that I reckon would have impressed even a Formula 1 pit crew. Not wanting to be without a spare for longer than necessary (both wipers are the same age, so the other could go the same way at any moment), within five minutes of regaining the main carriageway (Mick was driving) I had a replacement ordered, ready for collection in Penrith this morning.
Last night's kipping spot turned out to be perfect, giving us just a 20-minute drive to the parkrun location this morning. There, to Mick's dismay (considering he can't run at the moment) we discovered we had no TV signal for the rugby semi-final, but his dismay was shortlived when I downloaded the ITV App onto my phone and set it up ready for him to press the 'Play' button to set off the live streaming at kick off. I got back to Bertie twenty minutes or so through the first half to find that Mick had pressed 'Play' only then to be asked for a password. If it had been the other way around, I'm afraid I would have reset Mick's password without hesitation, but he was too polite to do that, so I found him watching the game via text updates on the BBC news website. As it happens, I also didn't know my password, so I had to reset it anyway, which allowed him to watch the rest of the match.
Off the top of my head, I think I've run 32 different parkrun courses. My favourite thus far has been Kräherwald in Stuttgart. The most attractive I've come across in the UK is Aviemore. At the bottom of the pile is Penrith, being two almost-dead-flat laps of some football fields.
It's not going to be an event I remember for the course, but for the 'what are the chances of that?!' occurrence just before the run. I was in the ladies' toilets, in a queue formed of just me and one other woman. We exchanged a few words about the weather (of course!), then after looking at me for a few moments, she asked if I was in the motorhome. "I thought I recognised you!" she exclaimed and in response to my blank look she explained that we had met in the car park of Aldi just over three weeks ago when she and her husband had knocked on Bertie's door to ask us about our experience of owning a Hymer B444.
With the rugby successfully won by England, and long after all other parkrunners had left, off we headed to Halfords to collect our windscreen wiper, whereafter another chunk of time was lost to the 'where next' question. All enthusiasm for the intended sightseeing had been lost due to the weather being cold, wet and miserable and Mick's leg isn't yet up for any rough walking. We opted for luxury instead - another campsite for mains power to fritter the rest of the day away with books, knitting and (hopefully - TV signal permitting) a bit of Strictly later.
(*I don't think I mentioned the equivalent alarming moment that occurred on our drive north three weeks or so ago, when on our way to the Falkirk Wheel we rounded a bend to find a motorhome (another Hymer, as it happens) coming towards us on our side of the road. After a few moments of both Mick & I wondering if we'd accidentally entered a one-way street the wrong way, the other vehicle moved onto the left carriageway and waved an apology. I just had time to notice the German number plates before we passed.)
* I'm glad we chose the wardrobe as a suitable place to store the spare windscreen wiper, making it so quickly and easily accessible from inside the vehicle.)
That’s a bit harsh! Penrith parkrun has great views towards Saddleback, and no trip hazards to prevent admiration of those views.
ReplyDeleteAnd you often meet someone you know there...
Maybe one day I'll run it again on a clear day and be able to see those views. On a miserable day, it's just a run around some sports fields.
Delete