Still in Glasgow in the rain

Relaxing on Sunday with a disguised Mr. T cat (requested by the homeowners)

Sunday we had lots of rain, all day rain, I didn’t step out of the front door. B popped out to get a newspaper, well it was Sunday after all.

I’d woken up on Sunday morning and thought the river looked different, wasn’t there an island there yesterday? Asking Brian if there wasn’t now something that there had been was like banging my head against a brick wall... “wasn’t there an island yesterday?” “There isn’t an island now “ “I know there isn’t now, but was there yesterday?” “ I don’t know, I can’t see anything....” anyway, by the end of the day there wasn’t a path to the river or access to the raspberry canes either, the water had risen a good 3’ to the back gate! Fortunately there is still a big bank up the garden so we didn’t worry about flooding....

Photo of the river from the upstairs window in relatively normal flow

(Brian: No wonder I feel 'got at' sometimes. I had just been reading an exciting section of a book about the Zulu war in South Africa in 1879, my mind was on that. "Wasn't there an island there yesterday?" 'What?'. 'What's she talking about now?' "In the river. wasn't there an island in it yesterday?" 'Uh, no idea, there isn't now' I said looking out of the window, 'it's in flood and looking very angry and fast flowing' I'm not a person of detail, but I can tell you what the weather forecast is for the day and whats happening in the world. An island in the river? I don't know, I didn't pay that much attention, why should I?)

Photo on Sunday in flood. Looking at the two photos, yes, you can see an island in the first one, but who would have noticed? Jackie, obviously, but how many other people?

At the bottom of the garden, river up to the gate

Monday it had finally stopped raining and wasn’t threatening any more till the afternoon so we went to the Riverside Transport Museum. Like most of the museums here abouts the museum is free, but sadly the parking is not. Very good museum, not just vehicles, but street scenes with little shops as they would have been along with some recordings of how life used to be.

Inside the River Transport Museum

Silly photo in the museums wavy mirror

Tuesday, the island was back “there is an island in the river “ he called excitedly from the bathroom “think it was there before....” doh! (Brian: Yes, having now seen it there it did look kind of familiar and, yes it must have been there before but didn't particularly register because it wasn't that important at the time. I'm sure a lot of blokes can identify with me here). Now though it was inhabited by very tired looking ducks who had probably been paddling frantically, just to stay in place for days. We had a trip into Paisley to look at the abbey as recommended by my father. 

Interesting steering mechanism on this old vehicle

Beautiful old buildings seemed to abound in Paisley as they do in Glasgow making both quite attractive. We couldn’t be out too late as we had a dinner date, just up the road, with some friends of Elizabeth and my father. Susan and Bobby were all of 15 minutes away, it’s a small world. We had a lovely evening with them and their dogs, Molly and Wanda, drinks, dinner, a little drive around and up to a fabulous view point, before a pint in the pub. Home at 22.30 to shocked cats who just didn’t know where we had been, or what we now smelled of!

On the tall ship at the Riverside Transport Museum. All this is free of charge

The fabulous Paisley Abbey

Today, should be packing up and heading off, but actually no. The homeowners are returning from Vietnam via Hong Kong. It probably seemed like a good idea when they booked it, but sadly due to the demonstrations going on in Hong Kong that have caused closure of the airport for two days they are still there! They have just let us know that they have flight for Thursday, so all being well they should be back, this time in two days....! Hopefully there will be no more demonstrations and everything will go smoothly. 

Inside the Abbey that dates back to the twelfth century

We’ve had to ditch our plans to catch up with Dave and Pol in N Yorkshire tonight, but hopefully we’ll make it back in time to catch up with Corinne and Helen and Ian on Friday! Glad we had a couple of spare days!

With Susan and Bobby at Robertson Park

Bobby, Molly dog, Wanda dog, Susan and Jackie enjoying the sunset and view on the top at Robertson Park

View from the top. Ben Lomond and the hills around Loch Lomond are visible