That’s What It’s All About

Today marks 90 years since the Great War, WWI, the one that everyone thought was horrific and which would therefore forever cause all other wars to cease.

If only.

In our quest to wander around the city and not stay indoors simply because it’s wet, cold or windy — or a combination of all three with the addition of stinging hail — we often will just get on a bus and ride around. Usually we get really lost, but heck, we’re not driving, and the bus goes in a loop, so eventually we get back into familiar territory, so it’s not like it matters. We’re discovering the neighborhoods in the outlying regions of the city, and finding some places we’ll be visiting when it’s a little drier and less windy.

This weekend, T. grumpily admitted her need for shoes for the November concert, and in order to beat the Christmas rush, opted to go out and do her shopping early. Of course, since there’s no Thanksgiving here, it’s already the Christmas rush, and the streets were thronged with shoppers — not quite in the elbowing and spitting hordes they will be in at the end of the month, but close.

We visited four shoe stores before T. decided on something that would work, but before we even got started, we heard the wild reedy sounds of a pipe.

Ah, the bagpipe. Whenever we hear it, we have to stop and check out the outfit of the piper, and these pipers were resplendent in their band uniforms. Behind them, moving to the music, were six girls in full military mufti, holding the ubiquitous (for this time of year) boxes of poppies for sale to benefit British veterans. It was an… amusing sight. Because the piper was not piping some death and glory military song, nor was he piping a stirring hymn nor a lament… Oh, no, no. He was playing The Hokey Pokey. And the whole band — and much of the crowd — was doing all the actions.

We left to the onerous task of buying shoes with smiles on our faces.

T. believes that hell is probably just a great big mall, so you can guess her… mood having to shop for shoes. To all the girly people (like her eldest sister) who are now complaining about her mental illness, yes, shoes are amazing. They’re fun to look at! But if you have feet which, depending on the shoe, are any of three sizes, please just add UK or European sizing into the mix and see the fun increase! Add to that the fact that “normal workout shoes” don’t actually seem to exist where we are, and you’ll see why it took four stores for us to buy some walking shoes (not even what we were after) and then flee for home. When even Footlocker has women’s workout shoes with rhinestones on them, you know you’re in a different world. T. looks forward to going home to pick up a pair of New Balance shoes, sans rhinestones, puffy fabric, leopard spots, tiger stripes, or sparkly laces.

Oh, okay, fine. Yes, the shoes were astonishing — they reminded us of looking at a tank full of tropical fish. None of them are the least bit practical for Glasgow’s rutted, pockmarked, puddle-laden pavements (or for standing upright at all), but that’s apparently not the point…

Standing sleepily at a bus stop the other afternoon, we happened to glance over at the building in front of which we were standing. To our surprise, it is apparently an historical place — the original home of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, at 120 Blythswood Street — which was Main Street at the time. The building looks to be remade over into plain old offices now, as the Mackintoshes moved out in 1914, but the front door has the distinctive 20’s Arts & Crafts style that made the man the celebrated architect he remains.

The interior of the Mackintosh house has been moved to the Hunterian Museum at the University. We haven’t gotten in to see it yet, as it is only open for a couple of hours a day, and parts of it are shut off, as they’re doing some building repairs around it. We do hear that the sequence of rooms in the museum directly matches the rooms in the Main Street house, which is kind of neat, if you’re into that… and can seem kind of obsessive if you’re not!

We’ve received numerous emails from friends at home and abroad, asking how people are responding to the election here. The unearthing of various versions of family trees which prove, indisputably, that a person of both Kenyan and American ancestry can also be part Irish and part Scots has made us chuckle. Apparently this is what is meant by the phrase “melting pot.”

Last year, as autumn dwindled into winter, we noticed that we were sleepy and …nightblind. We stumbled around a lot because our optic nerves, having had a lifetime’s exposure to bright sunshine, weren’t accustomed to the …subtleties of light in this part of the word. We’re finding it strange that it doesn’t seem as dark this year. (This is, in part, due to spending a LOT of time with full-spectrum bulbs indoors.) Sure, there are times of the day when having all the lamps on in the house still leave things dull and unlovely (usually at a quarter to four), but because we’re outside much more often now, we’re learning to look for the light.

On a rainy morning, when the wind was whipping and we were being spattered with icy rain, we realized that though the sun wasn’t up, the light reflecting from the street lamps fell in a neat pattern on the wet asphalt, itself reflecting little pools of light. Through the dark tunnel of trees in the park, we can see headlights streaking down the road, and dull pink shadings of dawn approaching. No matter how rainy the weather, there are variations in the grays and blues that make up the sky.

At the moment, we’re finding the winter thing to be doable. We’re adjusting to dealing with the house being cooler. We’re… happy, and feeling pretty optimistic about everything.

Sometimes, you just have to stop and be thankful for that.

– D & T

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