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Blue Skies and Perfect Glasgow Days

A little bit of sunshine fairly gives you a lift and I’ve been out and about a lot and busy, busy.  It’s been a long time coming but even when there’s a wee nip in the air, the blue skies are very welcome.

Sunshine Days

It was delightful to sit outside Rio’s on Saturday morning, chatting to some of the MLitt Creative Writing students about the events planned for the West End Festival and it was a perfect day for The Farmer’s Market, just across the street in Mansefield Park.  I loaded myself up with goodies and had a wee chat with some of the stall holders, including Jacques, Provence Direct’s Ambassador of Gastronomy, who appears very happy about moving his home from Grasse to Blochairn.

After soaking up the sunshine in our cardis, I headed up to Cottier’s theatre with Amy, Charlotte and James, to  check out the venue for the events to take place as part of the West End Festival on 4th and 11th June.  Come along for some late night literary exploits and meet emerging talents from the University of Glasgow’s Creative Writing programme – on 4th June (prose) and 11th June (poetry) 10 p.m. Cottiers. Theatre, Hyndland Road.  

I’ve probably mentioned before that I really love Hyndland Road and it just gets better and better.  Home to the amazing Cottonrake bakery, the fabulous Polish Deli and other delights, there is also wonderful new addition – Owen Bisset’s Gift Boutique, just opened and brimming over with his own fabulous fused glass jewellery and a wonderful array of tempting gifts. Definitely the most attractive shop to open in the West End for aeons.

When I left the theatre I couldn’t resist a further browse in Owen’s new shop before I walked along to Kelvingrove, via Handbags and Gladrags, where Maxine has some great new preloved and retro in stock for spring.  If I could have, then I would have, squeezed myself into a lovely pastel Barbour jacket, perfect for the stylish hillwalker (not that I fall into that category).  I popped in to say hello to Kirsty at The Big Mouth Cafe an afterwards I had a long blether with Eunice Whyte at her wonderful knitwear shop  – also on this fascinating stretch of Dumbarton Road.

I had arranged to meet John and Ryan at Kelvingrove Art Gallery, where we checked out the Gila Monster, the world’s most poisonous lizard, and other superlatives. Inadvertently I’d fallen into the theme as I’d bought some goose eggs at the market, so Ryan was going to have his biggest egg ever for Sunday breakfast.  

We didn’t hang around too long in the gallery as it was really a lovely day so we headed for the park, where it was wonderful to see all the sun starved Glaswegian skateboarders, dog walkers and pram pushers out enjoying themselves.  

We had another lovely day the previous Saturday, when John, Ryan and I left Jim happily recording, and hit the Botanics, we had a good walk round the park, watched the squirrels, who seem to like to hang out around Kirklee, and had a chat with John at the children’s garden. He showed us the year’s first cherry blossom and later we saw even more wonderful blooms at the Orchid Fair in the Kibble Palace before strolling over to replenish ourselves in Smile cafe in Queen Margaret Drive.  Ryan was thrilled to find a complete collection of C.S. Lewis books in the P.D.S.A. shop next door.  

Quite different from the start of the month when we supped hot soup in our woolly bunnets at Woodland’s Community Garden third birthday party. It was good running into  Martha Wardrop, Hillhead’s very committed Green Councillor, who I worked beside in Royston many years ago. There were more political animals out in their thousands, when the recent Bedroom Tax Protest, took place in Glasgow.  Not since the years of the dreaded Poll Tax have people been so angry about a policy – I saw many familiar faces at the rally in George Square and had a chat with  Lynne, Davie and Issi, who had been up at our house for dinner a week or so before, Ann Morgan, who’s father was for many years head of CND in Clydebank and  I also had a blether with another Bankie, George Campbell.  

Aye Write and bookish stuff

 I had a great time at Aye Write, Glasgow’s book festival.  I wish it was spread over a whole month as it’s hard to get along to a lot over a couple of weeks but I loved the events that I went to.  It was a particular thrill to see Pauline Lynch win The Sceptre Award, Glasgow University’s Prize for emerging writers. The excerpt from her book, The Keeper of Secrets, was acted out most powerfully and I’m watching out for the podcast, which will appear soon on Outside Thoughts. I’ll also be looking forward to reading Pauline’s book at a future date.
 
I also made it along to hear Louise Welsh and Maggie O’Farrell talking about their work – both very unpretentious and talented authors.
 
 Louise is one of the writers that I have included in my new section on the website on Glasgow Writers.  This was put together for an editing and publishing submission for my course at uni, a lot of hard work but I ‘ve got to admit that it was very enjoyable adding to this section and meeting up with Louise Welsh, Denise Mina, Ellen McAteer, Leela Soma and Paul McCafferty.

I also had a brief chat with, the ever entertaining, Greg Hemphill,  when we met up in Tinderbox  – I’ll be continuing to add to the list of authors, poets and novelists and Greg will be included.  

I have quite a few people in my sights, including Liz Lochhead, I’ve been laughing my head off reading her plays, and thoroughly enjoyed her performance at the recent Fail Better Poetry Night at McChuills.  Ellen McAteer was  performing at the event and Louise Welsh and Zoe Strachan were also very entertaining performers.
 
 Jim and I enjoyed a visit from  Paul McCafferty, the poet, whose work appears on my site and who is also a musician. Paul and Jim are busy working on some joint compositions in preparation for an event to be called Chapter and Verse. We had great fun in our wee living room, an absolute hub of creativity, as the fellows sang and worked out lyrics, while I was doing my homework for the new course I have joined on writing short stories, Centre for Open Studies.
 
 The classes are very enjoyable and so is the chat at Tennents Bar afterwards. Although, you need to be able to take the criticism on the chin – it seems to be the case that the more writing I do the more I find I have to learn.  Mainly I’m enjoying discovering a lot of new (well somewhat amazingly new to me) writers as I’ve never been one for reading short stories.  I’m now lapping up the likes of Raymond Carver and Alice Munro, she’s particularly wonderful. 

Hanging out with the kids

 We had great fun with Ryan and Caitlin celebrating their birthdays.  Caitlin shared a big party with a friend as she is now a teenager but we enjoyed a meal toghether at Wetherspoons, across the road from us.  Ryan had a more low key affair with family and friends in our house.  He was ecstatic over his mobile control helicopter. Just as well we didn’t go to Arran to celebrate, like we did last year, or we would have been snow bound.
 
 I had a wonderful time during the school holidays catching up with lots of the children in our family.  Both my nieces, Danielle and Aileen, brought their girls along to visit.  The babies, Erin and Sian, are now walking around – that seems to have happened overnight – and Eve and Freya were in seventh heaven raking through my junk jewellery drawer.  Clip on earrings, even mismatched ones, proved to be a particular hit.
 
 I was delighted to meet up with baby Allegra Venditozzi O’Neill and her gran, Rosemary. Allegra is a very cool wee girl and absolutely loved a bit of West End Cafe Culture in Tinderbox.
 
 Another great girl entertained us when we went along to see Genna perform with Dance OK at the Armadillo.  She was the star of the show and inspired me to go along to Still Dancing at Partick Burgh Hall, where I am now trying to keep up with some pretty rhythmic and flexible sixty and seventy year olds.   I’m a bit worried about remembering the steps but it’s very enjoyable and great exercise.
 

Catching up in Cafes

There’s nothing I enjoy more than a nice cup of coffee and a blether in a cafe.  It was particularly entertaining meeting up with Willie in Enjoy and in his words, ‘where did the time go’, we were way back in the 60s in Glasgow, talking about when Sauchiehall Street was a shoppers dream with wonderful department stores like Daly’s and Trerons.  Then we ran through a long list of hairdressers that we both knew from those days, including Robert Hely and Ian Coleman.

I also had a great old natter with Stephanie, when we met in Jellyhill in Hyndland.  It’s ages since I’ve seen any of the Celtic Music Radio gang so need to make an effort to get together.  However, we did make it along to Jane and Tom Fairnie’s for a musical afternoon in Edinburgh, so good to relax and listen to some wonderful talent including the two hosts and Karen Dietz and Bill Adair.

I met Clare Bird in Tinderbox for a chat about work she will be carrying out on the website regarding our commitment to supporting the development and marketing of west end businesses.  She’ll be starting work soon in the Hyndland area,  in particular focusing on what’s  Best In The West. If you are interested in us helping you to promote and market your business please get in touch with Clare.

Gigs

Things have been pretty quiet on the music front as Jim has been busy working on songwriting and production rather than performing.  The E.P. he’s producing for The Creeping Charlies is shaping up to be a cracker and he’s written a pile of new songs.  He got the opportunity to try some of them out when Crawford Smith invited him along to play at The Glad Cafe’s Americana Night and we had a great time.

What a brilliant venue – the atmosphere was fantastic and great to see so many fans along to catch the show, including, The Brady Gang, The McColgans, The Wilsons, Ann and Santino and Sylvia Rossi.  I loved the gig, Jim was delighted with his reception and the other bands, The Rodneys and The Midnight Tokers, were super.

Crawford has invited Jim back to play at the next Southside Americana Club at The Glad Cafe on Sunday 26th May,  part of the Southside Fringe. Also on the bill will be The Carlton Jug Band and Kevin Young, it’ll be a cracker.

Invitations have also come in for him to play at other festivals including Troon Live so looks like it’s going to be a busy gigging summer.

West End Festival 2013

Last but not least I should remind everyone that the West End Festival will run from 31st May until 30th June.  A very colourful launch took place at St Silas, Gibson Street, on Thursday 26th April and you will find programmes in libraries and cafes around the West End. This year there will be some great new events including, the Torchlight Procession on the 1st June, and the Mardi Gras Street Party will make a welcome return on 9th June – back once more on Byres Road.  Keep up to date with West End Festival Highlights on the site and add your own comments.

It was lovely to see Jackie, when she came for lunch, with a tangy lemon tart and Leela Soma and Sylvia Rossi were also gift bearing guests, so I now have some coral begonias and baby tulips on the balcony.  I enjoyed hearing all about Sylvia’s travels and Jim and I are now planning a trip to Andalusia, so can’t wait to see more blue skies and fascinating places.

In the meantime, there’s lots of new stuff up on the site including:

Jim’s April Photodiary
Glasgow Cinema City Re-born, Ian Mitchell
Roy Beers’ Glasgow Dining and Drinking
Anniesland Third Annual Garden Show
Action for Children Marathon
Glasgow Open Mic Nights
Tom Weir Statue Campaign
Live at The Star Club
Discounts and Offers in Glasgow
Nancy Smillie Jewellery Studio
Handbags and Gladrags

Also see: Regularly updated What’s On in Glasgow 

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