May in the Garscube Estate. 2023.

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A quick one from a walk in May as I had the photos ready. Garscube Estate exists in several different sections on Bearsden Road between Anniesland and Bearsden that you can explore in a couple of hours with a circular tour.   Old man of the Woods here, above.

 

It's a semi private estate but as long as you are well behaved within it you should not have a problem. A woodland path here.

 

Woodland path in May. Bluebells.

Garscube estate grounds.

Colour Splurge.

 

 

Carpet of bluebells near Maryhill Park which you can also visit on this walk along with Dawsholm Park for a longer outing. Three to five hours depending on pace for that.

River Kelvin path.

I remembered it had a good collection of flowers in April/ May/ Early June which is why I thought of it.

Bluebells close up.

 

Daffodil Balcony View.

 

Daffodil House.

Building Complex road. Garscube Estate.

A small part of the University of Glasgow's Garscube Sports Complex.

 Unusual duck. From a distance it looked golden. Not a goose though.

 

Riverside path after rain. Several heavy rainstorm were predicted so it seemed wise to pick a walk with some handy shelter nearby. Trees are taken for granted but they provide a natural umbrella and welcome sunshade for humans as well as all the other things they do for other creatures and the environment. 

 Certainly needed them on this trip with dark thunderclouds rolling in midway through it. I don't mind thunder and lightening storms on a walk though as long as I have the right gear, waterproofs etc. And trees definitely help.  'Forces of Nature' in the raw always put on a good show.

Fungi on a tree. Plenty to look at as the rain poured down and thanks to ample tree cover I barely got wet at all.

Unusual 'bottle brush' flowers,

A' poppy' tree.

 

Loved the muted colours in this one. Two bullfinches enjoy a woodland puddle for a bath and a drink.

 

Wild garlic in abundance.

 Female Mallard with two chicks. A swollen River Kelvin.

 

Earthly stars.
 

and it was.....all yellow. 

Young bear and mouse carving.

 

Club house tables.

 

The wild River Kelvin swollen after downpour.

 

Bears in the woods

A happy bear!

And I found a friend...  The end.

River Clyde Walkway To Glasgow Green. Calton and Bridgeton Cross.

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I've been off line for the past two weeks due to an outside technical fault so I'm almost a month behind on my blog posts. As promised in the last post this is the continuation of the Cuningar Loop walk along the north bank of the River Clyde to Glasgow Green. New flats at Dalmarnock Here. Dalmarnock and nearby Bridgeton used to have a large power station, gas works, iron works, sewage works, and other industries based there, which, due to a common weather feature very important in most northern European cities in past times. ( i.e. the prevailing winds blowing west to east,) meant a lot of hard graft jobs for those willing to live and work in the area if you could put up with the squalor and the smells. Obviously, not so relevant now, post Industrial Revolution era but still a long lasting legacy of that basic fact in most cities.       i.e.  the East End in most European cities will usually be the most deprived, have the heaviest concentration of problem factories, (coal fired power stations, animal rendering works, slaughterhouse facilities, steel and iron works, chemical factories. smoking chimney clusters etc....all found  past or present in UK and northern European city districts- East End.   Glasgow's being no exception.

 

Many of those industries listed above are long gone but I was made aware of the fact that the Dalmarnock sewage works are still active by the smell passing them as at a certain point on the river the stench kicked in. A smell not noticeable at any point walking through Dalmarnock itself nor in the Cunningar Loop Park at any point but I'd imagine it might drift occasionally in the wind. Fortunately on this day it was confined to a small section of the river bank around this mural, Took this photo because it was unusual. A kind of new romantic type theme going on maybe... or the circus? Or kabuki theatre perhaps?  Most of the better known punks and New Romantics incidentally, with good steady record sales over decades comimg in, live in castles or mansions now, still enjoying a time when people bought LPs and singles in large numbers from bricks and mortar stores.
 

 

I was also surprised to see a boat repair yard this far up the river, above the main barrage/weir at Glasgow Green,  but I suppose as long as you have access to a km or so of open river, as you do here, you can still test for leaks, steering problems, engine repairs etc, as it still seemed to be active. I suppose this makes perfect sense with over a million people.... in East End Glasgow, Rutherglen, Cambuslang. Airdrie, Hamilton. Motherwell, Coatbridge etc....(if some of them had boats and trailers that is) unwilling to travel to the coast for repairs when they have a local boatyard much closer to home.  Next boat repair place down the River Clyde I can think of is just past Yoker near the border with Clydebank.

 

Still get occasional boats on the river up here though and you sometimes see the Glasgow Green rowing club practice along this upper stretch.
 

 

Apart from the sewage works smell, (which was soon passed,) it was a pleasant green walk with an abundance of late May's wild flowers.... and butterflies.

An orange tip butterfly here.

 Bluebells...

 Common Comfrey. A plant often used in the past in herbal medicine to treat bruises, sprains, etc... even to set bones by making an early plaster cast from this plant mashed down then molded around an arm or leg to set firm. ( knit bone. bone set... being it's older more practical names).....with the old Belvidere Hospital location, also on the riverbank. not that far away, just upstream.

 So plenty to see and some nice welcome shade on a hot day.

 

Further downstream, after overhanging green shade, you pass into a fine open, airy section and a new bridge across the River Clyde. This part I've explored many times on a bike when it first opened, around ten years ago, and I can honestly say I don't miss traveling abroad for exotic holidays, or even the Scottish Highlands, when there's so much to see and do within Glasgow and the Central Belt. Hundreds of memories of past trips and frequent changes, dating back to the early 1960s stored away in my brain. The old Strathclyde Public School building here, above.

The River Clyde view from this same bridge with the new Police Scotland HQ building.

From the same bridge a view looking the other way, up towards Toryglen, and with clear memory to draw on I remember an excellent vivid day, about ten years ago, cycling up around these hi rise flats and finding unexpectedly good green trails and footpaths all round them then seeing the last of the old failed estate getting pulled down around  Prospecthill Circle district as I arrived. Urban Nirvana for me. A wild west gladiatorial Colosseum that's now only a glittering gemstone  memory of a day in the past. Only ever real to those who knew of its existence. I have a visceral encyclopedia of those places in my head. Images of old 1970s and 1980s Greenock, Edinburgh, Dundee, Kilmarnock, Perth, Cumbernauld, East Kilbride and Paisley. Even in a small area like Shawbridge massive changes have occurred. Housing estates rising and falling, entire landscapes transformed... buildings long gone or altered significantly.  Excellent because I always love exploring new districts and this was one I'd only driven past in a car.... not explored fully. Incidentally, I've not had a proper two weeks traditional holiday for around 20 years or more but I do not miss that extra expense and eggs in one basket commitment at all as I have frequent days out and occasional weekends instead. My life is one long holiday :o) 

 

Much cheaper... and I had plenty of thrills whizzing around Torglen that day....Happy and completely euphoric afterwards. Don't think The Golden Gate bridge. New York City , or even Angkor Wat could have topped that. 

I was puzzled by this new building though and the Red Tree sign on it. Turns out they rent office space here...and at other UK locations presumably for as long as you require it. One person or a group/ small company needing a temporary or longer term office. 

 

Part of the new walkway heading to Shawfield Stadium and Richmond Park.

 

 

Richmond  Park. I was only hear briefly, a small park I used as a green ribbon corridor to get me into Glasgow Green, a much larger park nearby.

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Where I ended up in Dassie Green, a park within a park, next to the Calton District.

Do not remember being in here either or if I was it was a long time ago, before this stone circle arrived. Blue signs give details of important events in Glasgow's long history.

Could just about read the info board. ( Should have brought a wet sponge. Both me and this board would have enjoyed it.) It is definitely getting warmer in the UK year by year. 28c to 29c in London last few days.... 24c to 26c in Glasgow for last three weeks.

 I headed up inland through the Calton District which has some prosperous looking mansions, relics of its vibrant industrial past, but also, stubbornly, has the worst male lifespan expectations in Glasgow/UK due to parts of it being a run down deprived area, traditionally blighted by the East End duo of drink and drugs. Having said that it has its own heritage buildings trail booklet of interesting local architectural features, (like the white house above,) which gets visitors following said booklet through the area.

 

The East End is still changing though.Year by year. New buildings around Bridgeton here.

 

 

The back unadorned unremarkable view of the former very ornate frontage, much photographed, Templeton Carpet Factory. Now flats and office space.

Templeton on the Green. The back view of the former Templeton Carpet Factory. I did have a purpose in coming up this way. A grail quest if you like. Glasgow's City Centre mural trail is well known and fairly compact for walking around in a half day visit but a few more distant outlying gable end murals are harder to reach and need a separate trip to find them. This is one.

 St Thenue or St Enoch, Mother of St Mungo,  Glasgow's Patron Saint. Design by Mark Worst. Brief history of the mural artwork, the reason for the fish, and the artist painting it here in this link. Also has his other mural work including Paisley's Kingfisher gable end.

 https://mark-worst-tfcf.squarespace.com/blog/2020/9/17/thenue-mural-bridgeton-glasgow

Despite being a full sized gable painting it is not that easy to find and I walked straight past this row of tenements on a previous trip some months ago. I went into the shops on the other side of these tenements for a sticky bun moment then got a bus immediately back to my house at the end of a long day, not realizing it was on the back end of this very same building, but hidden out of sight.This time I had the street location. Abercromby Street..... and the fact it was behind Templeton's. If you are standing on the POV spot of the previous photo, looking at Templeton on the Green you will see it as it is part of the left hand tenement block in that photograph.

 

A good day out. Ornate fountain. Glasgow Green.

 

 

William Hill Building at Bridgeton Cross.

 

Glasgow Green Adventure Playground. A good one with high slides and walkways.

Bridgeton Cross Shops. Glasgow.

 And back home again... by train. Total cost of day out .....£1:50 return ticket.

You don't need to spend a lot of money in my world to enjoy yourself immensely.

Cuningar Loop Park and the River Clyde Walkway.

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A recent walk I enjoyed took me to Dalmarnock and the Cuningar Loop Park situated between Dalmarnock and Rutherglen. I jumped on a train from my house then got off at Dalmarnock Train Station. When I worked in this area during the 1980s and 1990s I remember it being a fairly grim, dark neighbourhood of old style stone four storey tenements all along both sides of Dalmarnock Road with nearby Sunnybank Street at the tenement heart of the district not living up to its name in any way. (This was a pre- sandblasted Glasgow which removed 100 years of soot and grime from the more prosperous districts, not helped by the nearby bulk of Dalmarnock power station with its multiple chimneys and adjacent sewage works, the latter still there and still in operation, judging by the smell.) Sunnybank Street was instead an enclosed feeling, fairly dangerous, grubby gauntlet of a place for a visiting outsider parking a van there. Easily in the top 20 worst looking streets in Glasgow back then for crime, drug addiction, poverty, and general urban deprivation I'd imagine. A long street of half empty four story tenements on both sides... nearly all of the ground and first floor houses abandoned and secured with metal shutters with only the top two floors permanently lived in, presumably due to encountering less hassle from the street below, if you lived high up. 

 

I also remember at one point local primary school pupils getting a police escort to their school every day, presumably to prevent people trying to sell them drugs, give them drugs free, (to get them hooked), or some other safety issue at that time. Dalmarnock then was also a semi industrial area of small works and factories interspersed with the tenement buildings and old heavy drinking watering hole pubs like the Falcons Nest, The Plaza Bar. Nero's, and The Kimberley Bar (nearer Bridgeton in that instance) and many, many others. All long demolished. It did have plenty of employment opportunities at one time with gas works, iron works, and railway yards also located in this district but by the 1980s they were either gone or in decline and hardcore drugs like heroin flooded into Glasgow's council housing schemes/estates.

 What a difference 30 odd years make. It's now a much brighter, cleaner, more open, and lower level neighbourhood that is a pleasure to walk through. And Cuningar Loop adds a much needed green oasis to this inner city district that did not have a park nearby for locals to visit before.

 

These few remaining traditional flats on Dalmarnock Road, beside the River Clyde, gives you some idea of what the old tenement cluster of streets surrounding Sunnybank Street looked like in the late 1980s, only these flats are in much better condition. i.e. not half abandoned and shuttered up.

 

And this is Sunnybank Street today. 2023. Cleared waste ground over several city blocks where lines of tenements once stood and lower level flats on the other side. A much nicer, more open place .... although I suppose at some point other houses might be built here. 

 

On the other side of Dalmarnock Road, where various works and small factories once stood, regeneration house building projects are in full swing with both rented and bought houses springing up all around this area, (see first photo at top of this post, of other just completed riverside apartments.) It should make it a much nicer place to live although maybe locals who have grown up here might feel displaced somewhat by the brave new world taking shape around them, filling up with incoming tenants arriving from elsewhere. Gentrification occurring in most cities at some point.

 

The River Clyde at Dalmarnock. Having a large river right beside you is a bonus for scenic enjoyment but also a potential danger for local children during heatwaves tempted to explore its banks or go swimming in it. A quick cold/lukewarm shower or a splash in a sink over your head has the same effect only not so risky. Dozens of children die each year in the UK in rivers and lakes, even good swimmers.

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With this maybe in mind the park itself has loads of stuff to keep children interested. A  large and varied adventure playground here. It also has an up and down bike trail.

 Around nine different climbing boulders with multiple top class problems/graded routes on each. Ten foot high.

 

Unlike other climbing wall style features in other parks/areas these look worth making a special trip to try out if you are into bouldering as they do look like carefully planned professional grade routes although they might be busy with ambitious children on certain days. I was here early, before 11:00am so had them all free to myself. That front sloping slab looks about VS-HVS standard or 6a at a guess. Not having rock boots with me no point trying such finger pocket sized small holds.

 

 

A view from the Cuningar Loop look out tower situated within the park.

An elevated walkway and viewing platform just above tree level, around 40 feet high but enough to give decent surrounding views of the area.

 

This is it here from the central meadow with an eye catching sculpture in front.

 

 

Several of these exist in the park. Metal entrance arch here.

 A view of the Emirates Arena and Celtic Park FC Stadium from the lookout tower.

 

A personal highlight for me within the park was this boardwalk trail beside the River Clyde that felt very 'Scottish jungle' thanks to its high vegetation and lush greenery in spring and summer conditions.

 

 

Instead of monkeys jumping around we have grey squirrels.

 

Not afraid of visitors.

The wild River Clyde at Dalmarnock. Could be Huckleberry Finn land and the Mississippi River basin at first glance.

View of Glasgow city Centre from the look out tower in Cuningar Loop Park.

To be continued... ( this is just one half of a two part walk along the River Clyde. Second half later.
  PS another thing I enjoyed recently on TV that falls under the title of 'true inspiration.' Myleene Klass deservedly winning I'm a Celebrity. South Africa. by eating the usual disgusting meals on it to an incredible degree never seen before then donating her one hundred thousand pound winnings to the Save the Children charity. The complete reverse of many high profile already rich modern politicians who, (according to dozens of news accounts over the last decade) seem to spend large chunks of their time thinking up ways to further increase their personal bank balance at every opportunity when they get into power. So....It's been many years since I've been truly inspired by anyone... but she did it this week. 

 

Another highlight on TV has been the last few years of women's football, mainly down in England which I started watching during the World Cup then the Euros. Because they are now full time professional teams playing in a competitive league the standard and skill levels are very high and at the moment free to watch on TV. I must admit I prefer it to the men's game where often cynical fouls and dives in the penalty box are the norm due to the increased money levels/rewards at stake there. yet the athletic ability and skill levels in the women's game and the audience attendance at big games are catching up fast, demonstrated recently by Chelsea's Sam Kerr. Not only a vital winning goal but a double combination running cartwheel/ somersault celebration worthy of a top Olympic gymnast. Luckily, I picked Chelsea as my team a few years ago due to a Glasgow connection in it... as they have won almost every major football competition since.  No Partick Thistle Nil for this lucky viewer. Only exciting end to end games and plenty of goals for me so far :o)