Goodness Grays!

In 2017 we had our first trip to Glasgow for many years and enjoyed walking around the city centre (see my travel blog at http://helengray.net/travels/christmas-2017-in-the-uk/glasgow.html). But Glasgow is more than the grey stone buildings of the city centre, it has plenty of parks much enjoyed by Scottish dogs and their owners, and the marvellous Burrell Collection which has only just re-opened. The highland cow shown above lives in the grounds of Pollock House, near the Burrell Collection, and it is definitely worth paying them a visit. The field was littered today with young calves. Their mothers barely raised their heads from the grass, concentrating on eating as much as possible to feed their young. Highland cattle come in all shades of colour, from orange to black tones. The bulls can be easily identified from their horns; cows have upturned horns, and bulls have horns pointing directly forward. Bulls also have wider and shorter heads. Today was a lovely sunny day and it was so pleasurable just watching these animals in this beautiful setting.

The Burrell Collection is a museum housing the collection of Sir William Burrell and Lady Constance Burrell. Everything in this collection is exquisite; there clearly had an eye for quality. Whether these artefacts were bought, plundered, or plundered and sold, is not clear. But the curators have endeavoured to make one look carefully at each item to make one think about the purpose of everything. So, why does the lady on the left below look so mournful? Well her husband has been sentenced to death and he is soon to die.

In the photo immediately below you can see how the pottery has been grouped based on colour, not on the conventional chronological display sequence. This simple change in display format makes you appreciate the items in a different manner. In the room containing wooden furniture, there was an interactive video display panel where you could turn a wooden table leg and have it magically added to a finished table. There was such such a lot to see and learn about that made this a must-return-to museum.

Our wander around Rouken Glen park also showed us another way of viewing life; this time it was the birds! This was a large mature park on land originally belonging to the Scottish Crown. Its last owner Archibald Cameron Corbett (later Lord Rowallan) gifted the estate to the citizens of Glasgow and it now comes under the local government of East Renfrewshire. We certainly didn't see everything today, and much like the Burrell Collection, this is a place for return visits.

The lake is quite the focus of attraction and we were pleased to see a cygnet on the water.

But humans had to be warned by a fake plastic duck not to feed the birds with bread! Not sure what the purpose of the wooden duck/goose was though!

On this current visit we were again staying with an old friend in Giffnock, south west of Glasgow, and were joined by another old friend from Hong Kong days. Together we took three day trips from Glasgow and marvelled at the extra long days up in the north during summer months! We were often out from 9am to 9pm and definitely did more than the recommended 10,000 steps per day! Accounts of these day trips form the basis of the accompanying blogs which are listed and accessed below.