I only found out about the Govan Stones the other day when I picked up the car and I thought, I think I’ll have a wee look.
Mum is from Govan and I do have a memory of going there with Ma when I was very young going to pick up orange juice at a big building near the docks. The building is still standing, but I’m not sure what it does these days.
Before going to see the stones I went for lunch, lentil soup and a cheese and black pudding roll, bloody marvellous. Filled a space and warned me up because today was rather chilly.
The Govan Stones were discovered in the church grounds and graveyard and some date back to the 8th century and many have Viking influences. I thought when I walked into the church of would be a relief from the cold but it seemed colder in than oot.
I picked up a Corsa hire car this morning, it’ll be easier to get oot and aboot. Having to go to the two funerals would be almost impossible by public transport from Houston. Nice place but it’s a bit cut off.
For those that don’t know it’s a small hatchback and this one is manual. The pedals are small and my shoes keep catching the foot rest next to the clutch. It’s nippy enough, however the visibility is rubbish, the A, B & C pillars are way too big and when you go round a roundabout for instance the A pillar is in to line of sight. But it will do for two weeks.
I tried to connect the Android Auto but it won’t talk to my phone which is a bit of a pain.
Going down to Campbelltown at the weekend, went to Largs yesterday with Christine and we had a good day although the wind would cut you in two. I had black pudding fritters and Christine had Haggis fritters, both delicious. We then went for coffee and Ice cream at Nardini’s.
I like Largs, one day I’ll have to go across to Millport.
Got up at 8am, had a bit of breakfast and took a few panadol for the niggling headache, too much whisky last night on an already dehydrated body.
Mid morning Ken, Linda and myself went for a walk ending up at Bridge of Weir where we had bacon rolls and coffee. The sun was shining and it was bloody marvellous.
The bacon rolls went down a treat.
It took about an hour to get back to the house and then Ken and I headed to have a look at Corseford. We both noticed the same thing, everything looked so small to what we remember. It was great to stroll down memory lane and when we did we bumped into Christine… It’s a small world.
The old hoose Entrance to the Beith Rd Tunnel
Drove around the area and passed the two gravestones of two dogs that died many moons ago, I crashed into the Afghan Hound’s years ago one night I was out playing in the snow and ice in the car. I made a right arse of the corner and ploughed into the wall.
The sun was shining coming into Glasgow. Looking out the window I couldn’t get over how green everything is. I got through to the baggage carousel fairly quick and waited five minutes and then I saw my bag in amongst the chaos. I’d used the a red strap on the case which makes it a lot easier to spot.
I called Ken on my Australian mobile because I couldn’t log onto the WiFi, thank goodness for global roaming. I nipped across to the BP and within a couple of minutes Ken arrived in his new BMW I4 electric car, very nice.
Ken was heading to the football and so he quickly ran me home and then dropped me back off in Johnstone where I went in search of a sim card. It seems more complicated than the last time I was here. I bought a sim card for £1 and then I have to go and top up the card with credit. I’ll have to do some research on that this evening.
I went and checked my lottery ticket that I bought give years ago and then to my surprise the shop keeper tells me that it needs to be checked within six months and so I guess after five years it was a bit too late. So I bought a new one for tonight’s draw so I might get lucky.
I went to see about the bus home and it looked like it would be an hour before it came and so I decided to walk back, I mean I’ve been sitting on my arse for the past 24 hours.
Five minutes from home and the bus drove by and I was beginning to run out of juice. Got into the house, took my case upstairs and then had a shower which felt bloody marvellous.
So now I’m kind of watching Only Fools and Horses and waiting for Ken and Linda to get back and the jet lag is beginning to catch up with me. Not sure what time zone I’m in at the moment.
I’ve no been here since 1986 and back then it was a tiny wee place and the toilets were no better than a hole in the ground and there wasn’t even any grab handles and if your glutes are no up to scratch and of course you’re completely sober then you have no chance of aiming true and surviving unscathed.
Now, the place is mahoosive and it had taken me nearly an hour to navigate the many corridors and shops to get to me gate and I’m knackered.
Ma een are needing a rest and they are nippin’, I’m hoping that I will get a few hours kip on this next flight and that when I arrive in Glasgow that the rain will have stopped, the sun will be shining and that I will have won the lottery.
All the answers to those questions will be divulged at a later date.
That’s what time I got to the train station. It took me about 10 mins or so to walk to the station from home and thankfully it wasn’t too hot. Mind you I have had the air con on for a few hours to try and stay non sweaty.
Let’s see what time I get to the airport!
The train journey was relatively painless, although there were too many school kids on the train which I did not expect. They were a bit noisy, but it seemed as if they were doing freestyle rap and some of it was quite good if not a little rude for a few in the carriage.
I changed trains at Roma Street and then the airport train arrived a few minutes later. The walk from the platform to the terminal is about three minutes and then I was in the Emirates check in queue.
5.30pm
A young Chinese girl checked me in and it turns out she is from Kunshan, which is a short distance from Suzhou where I lived for four years. She asked me if I could speak Chinese and I did my usual phrases that I know off by heart.
After security I headed to the Coffee Club to have a toastie and a coffee as I’m Hank Marvin.
Flights at 9pm
The walk from Coffee Club to gate 73 is quite a hike, I’m glad I didn’t have me gammy leg, although this time it’s me gammy wrist. I’ve got a compression bandage on my left wrist but every so often I move it and there’s a shooting pain. It’s strange because I can still do push ups and pull ups without any problems. Old age is not as good as advertised.
So I’m flying peasant class and I have a window seat and at the moment I have two wishes, no fat people or children beside me. I’ll let you know soon enough.
8.45pm
On my seat, 46K and the good news is that I’m not beside a fat person or a child, in fact I can’t see any kids yet but I have one old dear and a Vegetarian, although I’m hoping the Muslim tribe don’t come and sit three rows up or that will be sad indeed.
And just then they appear, so this could be bad news. Yes it’s bad news they are across the aisle and up one. I just hope that keep those kids under control.
Fuck!!
I’ve never been on an A380 before and it’s been years since I’ve been on A Jumbo style jet. Years ago I’d been on 747’s and they were big and then everybody seemed to downsize and so now I am on the biggest flying machine to date. There seems to be plenty of room, however the window is miles from the edge of the chairs..I’m going to have to stretch when I decide to have a snooze.
At 8.58pm we leave the terminal and the pilot had just told us that our flying time is just under 14 hours, I’m thinking I need some booze to make it through the night.
9:20pm we finally took off, twenty minutes to taxi to the runway. I was watching the view from the tail camera as we manoeuvred into position and then finally for take off.
You really feel the weight of this big beast, but the surprising thing is that it’s really quiet in the cabin, I think this is the quietest plane over been on. The sad thing though is that I can hear those fuckin kids. ☹️
Dinner was served, and it was delicious. We had braised beef with mashed potato and green beans. There was fruit and mango cheesecake.
After dinner I watched a bit of TV but I was really just channel surfing and then I thought I go for a slash and try to snooze. I put in the ear plugs and headed off to the land of nod but didn’t stay there for too long mainly due to the turbulence but really because I’m in peasant class.
I also woke up because, the vegetarian next to me was writhing as if possessed but it could of been to do with me snoring I guess…
I’d come to and my mouth was like an Arabs sandal all the way back to my tonsils if I still had them but I’d left them back in 74 at the Yorkhill Children’s Hospital.
9:43am, not local time but Australia time.
We’ve had breakfast and on the final stage of our flight. I guess my broken sleep was quite effective because we have 90 mins to go till we reach Dubai. The queue for the loo’s are beginning to form. The women will hog the toilets and put on new faces while the rest of the men will sit cross legged waiting their turn.
I to need to go and I’m one of those men sitting cross legged.
10:00am I decided that it was better to fight my way out from the window seat and get comfortable. My seat is near the bottom of the stairs that go to the second deck and at the bottom of those stairs there are six toilets which I guess they need on a plane this size.
It’s such a large plane and it feels so solid. Even when we were flying through the turbulence the sheer weight of the beast flattened out the ride. My only complaint about this big beastie is that you can not reach the side of the plane to rest your head because it’s too far away.
Mind you the entertainment on board is the best I have seen on a flight. The choice of music especially if impressive, it’s almost as if they have had a look at my collection.
We have been chasing the sun all night and still not caught it, however it will catch up with us shortly after we arrive in Dubai.
5:10am local time, about 11:10 in Australia and we have arrived. First port of call, a cafe.
Coffee is a double expresso with a bit of water and I feel that it needs to be a triple, but my taste buds are fairly average this morning.
So I’m in Dubai for two hours and then onto Glasgow for about an eight hour flight.
My garden is looking better, the retaining wall has been rebuilt and I’ve even planted a few plants. The toll taken on my body has been somewhat surprising. My hands and especially my left wrist have been left with a few strains and I am currently wearing a compression bandage on my wrist to help with the potential RSI. But I’m working my way through the list of jobs that need to be done before the year is out.
Got a message last week to let me know that my cousin Anne had passed away, I didn’t realise that she was sick and I’m still not sure what happened. A few days later I find out that my cousin Mairi has been moved to a hospice and she passed away on Saturday. it certainly sharpens your focus when death arrives at someone’s door.
So I will be returning to Glasgow on Friday to say my goodbye’s. I’m sure their will be many tears in the een, however it is also a great opportunity to catch up with the rest of the family and to see friends that I haven’t seen for years.
Flights are booked. Flying in an A380 for the first time, mind you I will be in peasant class unless someone takes pity on me and gives me a seat upstairs. The flights are so expensive at the moment. Peasant class is around $3000 and the most expensive flight was $17,000 for 1st. If I win the lottery I shall go for the upgrade.
It’s beginning to warm up this week and I’ve had the air conditioning on today as well as yesterday. The sky is so blue and the sunlight would cut through like a laser beam, great for the solar but not good for the body. The UV is extreme and so getting away from it for a few weeks will be good. I’ll have to pack the winter woollies as I believe the words used when talking to friends was “Baltic”
My thoughts about going to Egypt and Jordan at the beginning of the year was because I always wanted to go, and another reason was that it seemed to be the right time to go because it had been relatively peaceful in the neighbourhood.
I’m glad that I went.
Hamas attacked Israel the other day and everybody is shocked and is standing in solidarity behind Israel publicly at least. Questions are being asked,
“Why did they do it?”
The answer is so clear that even a blind person can see clearly. There are many reasons why the Palestinians as a nation of people are angry and frustrated, although nobody wants the current situation.
In recent years Israel has persecuted the Palestinians, continued to steal and build new illegal settlements on their limited land and the international community has more or less ignored it. It’s more like an Apartheid situation and all the while Israel antagonises the Palestinians and the Israelis can do no wrong. And no one can say anything against the Jewish Community or you are seen as anti semitic and it signals a death sentence for your career or life as you know it.
America has the back of Israel, which seems to make it think it has carte blanche to do what it wants and it usually does. The right wing government run by Netanyahu is one of the most racist governments in years and has made life more and more difficult for Palestinians and I think has led to the current situation and he is enjoying every moment.
Israel has set siege to the Gaza strip, the people there will be like fish in a barrel. The Israeli government could not give a rats about the civilians, as far as they are concerned everyone belongs to Hamas. They have told civilians to leave the area but how can they when borders are sealed. The images coming out of there are horrendous as too are the accounts of what has happened to innocent Israelis massacred by Hamas.
I don’t support Hamas and never will and I don’t condone the violence. I don’t think war solves much, although it does make a few people very rich at the expense of the innocent.
Their is no easy answer, but when this war is over there needs to be a discussion on the future of how Palestinians can have a future without having Israel having so much control over their destiny.
I’m sure most folk won’t agree with my thoughts but I think it’s about time the international community calls out Israel when it does something wrong and hold it accountable so that life in that part of the world can change for the better for everyone.
Yesterday I got out before the sun got too high in the sky to put another coat on the stairs. I then cut the three treads needed to finish them off; made sure they fitted and then put a couple of coats on the bottom side of the tread. One of the treads looks a bit moth eaten but after a lick of paint it looks not too bad, and the timber still has plenty of meat left in it so it will be around for many years to come.
After a bit of lunch I headed up to Brisbane to meet Julie for our afternoon walk around the Brisbane River. When I looked at the route on Google maps it came back with a figure of about 10 km and so this should have been a couple of hours at the most. I told Julie that we only had a couple of hills to negotiate, which was true, and the rest of the walk is by the river.
At the top of Highgate Hill the line on Google Maps follows down to the west of Southbank crossing the river at that point to the North Side. But when we reached Highgate Hill I turned left to go down to the river more directly. I have cycled this route many times over the years and I’m very familiar with the area, however I didn’t quite realise that when walking, and of course not following Google the extra distance was close to 5 km. By the time we reached the river the penny dropped that we still had many more km in front of us. Julie was not too happy about this and neither was I to be honest.
My GPS tracker stopped as we came through Highgate Hill and so I don’t have an accurate distance, but basing it on the number of steps it would be around 16 km or there about. We crossed the river and the final walk along the river was fairly brisk but it was great to finally make it back to the car. We were going to go for some noodles but it was nearly 6pm by the time we got back to Julie’s place and so I headed off home.
I woke up early this morning, around 6.30 and just had to get up. I had breakfast, I was starving but tired. After breakfast the couch beckoned and I once more drifted off into the land of nod for another hour or so.
So today will be a very lazy day. The stairs will get finished tomorrow and then I’ll figure out what to do next. Still got more painting to do and another part of the retaining wall to fix.
We got rain and storms one day this week, which was marvellous for the garden and also to wash the dust off the car. The water tank is nearly a third full which should be good to keep the garden watered for a week or two. And they are predicting more storms I think on Wednesday next week which is fine by me, one day a week is just grand. The top layer of the ground was soft and damp and so it was a good time to pull out many of the weeds that had appeared overnight. Three buckets later I had removed most of them.
I’ve been working on the new stairs beside the garage this week and I even put the columns into proper footings with real concrete and everything. Not the best footings I must admit, however if they last for about two years then I will be happy with that, because I think I will have moved on by then. Tomorrow I’ll cut the treads and fit them, but I’ll have to do a bit more painting before I finally stitch it all together.
I bought Pale Eucalypt paint to use on the retaining wall. This morning I finished off the western side, which is the part that has been repaired and even after one coat it’s looking great. In a few weeks’ time I’ll get decking oil and I’ll use some on the new posts too and maybe on the older part although I might just use the Pale Eucalypt.
One pleasing thing I discovered this week is that I seem to have almost every tool, screw and attachment needed to do all these different jobs. I have finally reached a zen moment of construction…..very happy…….
One of the posts is a little bit rotten inside and rather than replace it I’m going to cut out the bad section, put in a new piece of hardwood along with Builders Bog which is a multi purpose filler that sets fairly hard and this should seal some of the damage. I was told that I should use some engine oil in the internals of the the post and this will put a little bit of moisture back into the timber and therefore give it a bit more longevity.
