Last week saw us up in Glasgow for the day, attending a friend's daughter's graduation party. We had such a lovely time, celebrating her achievement. We also wandered around the city, enjoying the architecture and the sun. It was actually 25°C!! Almost too hot for sightseeing!
We didn't have a lot of time to see the sights, but did enjoy Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery, as well as a stroll through the University quarter and along the Clyde.
My thoughts couldn't help but stray to Alexander McCall Smith's 44 Scotland Street novels. Whilst they are all firmly set in Edinburgh, one of the key characters, Bertie, and his friends dream of Glasgow as the promised land! In the most recent 44 Scotland Street offering A Promise of Ankles the Promised Land beckons for Bertie who is off to Glasgow for a school exchange that takes him "doon the watter".
So, here the boys, Bertie, and Ranald Macpherson, are approaching Glasgow. They "saw Glasgow begin to materialise before them...Unlike Edinburgh, with its ordered classicism, or Paris, with Haussman's broad boulevards, this was lived-in cityscape, like a pair of comfortable trousers hung up to dry beside the Clyde estuary."
As we approached Glasgow and drove, and walked, around the city, I could see exactly what Alexander McCall Smith means. There is something very down-to-earth and homely about Glasgow, and, once again, to quote young Bertie "the food in Glasgow is pretty good....They don't have Valvona and Crolla, of course, but they have got a few shops of their own..."
To echo this sentiment, we had a delicious meal in Epicures by Cail Bruich, which rounded off a thoroughly enjoyable day.