This time we are
house sitting in Cardross, Scotland...in a house between Dumbarton
and Helensburgh about 45 minutes West (and a bit North) of Glasgow,
on the River Clyde... and we get to stay here until the end of
November (having arrived on 30 August). The folks who own the house
are also retired and have taken their compact motorhome to Italy.
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| Bruce Court, Cardross |
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| 1 Bruce Court, Tiny Fiat 500 |
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| Rear Yard of 1 Bruce Court |
Our trip began on
August 22nd, with legs from Asheville to Charlotte to
Philadelphia to Glasgow. We were planning a week in Edinburgh at the
Fringe Festival before going to our assignment. But since it will
take four auto rentals to get us to the end of November (it has to do
with the 30-day insurance limit VISA insists on), we had planned to
start in Glasgow.
We did not make it
to Glasgow from Philadelphia. The airline's story was that some
passengers complained that crew members on our incoming aircraft were
under the influence of something and under FAA rules the complaint
had to be checked out. So no aircraft to fly us to Glasgow.
Instead, US Air offered to send us to Edinburgh, through Dublin, and
it would only take 7 or 8 hours longer instead of waiting until the
next evening to leave Philly. Since we were bound for Edinburgh
anyway it sounded OK, but it caused significant changes in car and
hotel plans. And, our bags did not get to Edinburgh for 3 days (but,
for the first time ever we had clean socks in a carry on :-)). So,
after our first month here, on the 26th of Sept, we drove back to Edinburgh (about two hours) to turn in the first car – a
lovely mustard yellow Fiat 500 – then took a train and a bus to
Glasgow airport to pick up our white Ford so we could get back on
track with car reservations. Whew!
Though our start in
Edinburgh was a bit uneven, we had a great time wandering the streets
and finding interesting performances to see – 12 pieces in 4
days/nights – largely drama and dance, though there was one odd,
fun piece of mostly flamenco music but featuring a man (apparently of
Indian descent) who performed what we took to be classical Indian
dances usually performed by women. And, the piece was named for a
traditional Sufi repetitive meditation! It's what makes this
“fringe” so great – over 3,000 performances in 3 weeks and you
never too sure about what you are signing up to see next!
A couple of dance
pieces finished with repetitive Capoeira (martial arts) type moves,
accompanied by very loud music. Several others were pretty hard to
make sense of, but we enjoyed others very much. David's favorite was
a fairly serious play about relationships, involving a somewhat
androgynous person who decided he is now a man, a woman who is
suffering through a painful split from her spouse, and an artist who
is supported by her brother and who has not left her flat in 2 years.
It was wonderful, but Susan missed a lot because she had her hood
up - really cold air was blowing right on her head.
The other really
super piece was a one man show put on by Pat Kinervane. This one was
called Underneath, and you
can read about him and his works online. Suffice
it to say that he is a strong, older Irish actor playing a dead woman
is this case. The piece was memorable.
Edinburgh
goes
a bit crazy during the three weeks of the fringe – and
there are other festivals going on at the same time.
A great deal of the busiest
part of the city is totally taken over, as you can
see from this picture
showing a park near
the University that has
been fitted out with temporary fake grass and
four performance spaces. The
last time we were here (a few years ago) we saw a play in several
tiny bespoke buildings in the Botanic Garden –
this time the strangest place was in a movable storage container.
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| George Square Edinburgh, next to the University |
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| Fringe Festival Posters, George Square |
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| One of many food carts outside George Square |
Cardross
is a tiny town – a golf course, a pub, an ancient church and a ruin
– pretty typical. We are in a fairly new house in a neighborhood
built about 10 years ago on farm land. The bus is at the corner and
the train just down the hill. We are out and about a good deal as
Susan's lists of things we “MUST” see and do is very, very long.
For starters, Glasgow
is a fairly short
drive and we just love that city...it is filled with very different
“hoods”. One of the oldest is
where the “Barras” (barrows) market is now – one of the coolest is the
West End, near the University, and
the world-class Kelvingrove Museum. Another
one of the oldest is
around St. Mungo's Cathedral, Necropolis
and Museum and the one
that feels like Tribeca is called Merchant City. It would be easy to
live here and the real estate is not too expensive either. There is
a good deal of theater, many museums,
music (it's known as “Music City”), and other special event
venues that seem to be
busy continuously....and
it
is second only to London for shopping – especially high end along
the many “pedestrian-only” streets. One
day, we saw a sign in a window announcing a lecture/slide
presentation by Andy Scott, creator of the “Kelpies” being held
in the only church that Charles Rennie
Mackintosh actually saw built. It
was a terrific evening for
a local benefit and we
would encourage you to check out these amazing sculptures at
http://www.thekelpies.co.uk/
and the church at
http://mackintoshchurch.com/
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| A view of Merchant City, Glasgow |
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| A view of the Barras market in Glasgow - it made us nostalgic for our volunteer job at the CarePartners Estate Sale |
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| Another scene from the Barras market |
We
just love abbeys, castles, cathedrals, and palaces...mostly those
in ruin...and the older
the better. We are doing day-trips so far but are planning a couple
of over-nights to get to some further away places. One of our
favorite areas is Kilmartin Glen and Museum – a very large area with over 300
ancient things to wonder at...cup and ring carvings, cairns with and
without burials, stone circles, and on and on. Before
we left Asheville we made a reservation for a tour and lunch in their
lovely cafe – it was the last tour of the season so we got up early
and made the long drive (because of all the lochs you have to drive
up and around – there are few direct roads here in the West).
Although we have visited this area several times, it was a stunning
and informative day to say the least.
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| Nether Largie South, Kilmartin Glenn |
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| Standing Stone, Kilmartin Glen |
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| Stone Circle, Kilmarten Glen |
So,
enough for now...we'll try to get this posted with some pics and will
write more sooner or later, promise.
Oh, one last thing. Susan did a video when we first got to the Barras market. Here it is:
Toward the end a man calls out, "cigarettes, tobacco, viagra", and we later learned that it is all contraband. A few seconds later he notices Susan's camera and says" what's this all about?" She stops and when he hears her accent he decides she's not an undercover agent, reporter or whatever. Ends up calling her "Darlin" after quite the conversation!!
Oh, one last thing. Susan did a video when we first got to the Barras market. Here it is:
Toward the end a man calls out, "cigarettes, tobacco, viagra", and we later learned that it is all contraband. A few seconds later he notices Susan's camera and says" what's this all about?" She stops and when he hears her accent he decides she's not an undercover agent, reporter or whatever. Ends up calling her "Darlin" after quite the conversation!!
