Transformation

Tired after eight years of sun, rain, ice and all that England then Scotland can throw at it, poor old Dalriada's red paintwork was long since brown with yellowish patches (the latter largely from an inadvisable experiment with marine cutting compound some three or more years ago).

But no more!  Fresh from the heady delights of last week's Scottish Episcopal Church General Synod, this week I am painting a narrowboat red!  A spot of dial-in meeting to Oban has varied the pattern a little, as has collecting and delivering Elly from her S4 work placement in the Glasgow Riverside aka Jaggy-roofed Transport Museum. A little close manoeuvring in the 60 foot boat to turn the sides has been rather good for me, to remind myself that I can still do it!

And the rain has held off enough (by Weds evening) for both starboard and one of the port coats to have been applied.  That really IS a miracle in Kirkintilloch in June.

And to reflect upon all this in the context of life? Elly will be goine soon, in a couple of years, to we know not what.  And by then the shiny red paint will be rather browner than it is today.  It all continues, it all fades, and we find ourselves back again, in our metaphorical white coveralls (of which more another day) doing it all over again!  

Thanks be to God!

Holiday over...

A ragged end to a week's holiday, as we return and the answering machine and e-mails and lovely folk popping round seep back into life.
A week on a narrowboat, with a little sailing and a lot of just being, is a good holiday. Having no identity other than a person who's on a narrowboat. Or in the cinema. Or at the theatre. Or in the shops. All good things to be.
What did we do?
Sailing to Auchinstarry, to pump out and fill up, with a canalman who used to be broker in the city.
Sailing to Stockingfield Junction in Glasgow, through a pretty deprived area of the city (ah - I have story about that that I must re-tell here on day...).
Meeting eleven hired narrowboats with Swiss canal-buffs all 'doing' the Scottish canals.
Rekindling the children's dislike of clowns - and hopefully letting them glimpse what mime and performance art can actually do (ah - I must blog about minimalist performance art and liturgy sometime)
And coming back, ready for more - including tomorrow's baptism (ah - I must blog about baptism and witchcraft, when it feels right).
(and ah - I must change back the answering machine)
A good holiday!

Urban catwalk vs Bute chic

In Glasgow, Wellington, and his horse whose name I forget (Copenhagen, Wikipedia tells me), are decorated with that item of urban style - a traffic cone! With some physical challenge, usually alcoholically propelled, this has become so much the norm that photos like the one below (from rabbie.net) are more common than ones without a cone!

Carol Walker captures a similar fate for Lord Kelvin - is there any statue in Glasgow that avoids an orange fluorescent bunnet? She thinks not!

It even spreads to Perth - the mainland trend for statue decoration... xmarksthescot.com picks this one out, but fails to name it! (It's David Annand's sculpture with Willie Soutar's poem Nae Day Sae Dark engraved inside the ring)

But Bute has a different style for one of its stalwart citizens: Alexander Bannatyne Stewart, owner of Ascog Hall and "...at the time of his death Convener of the County of Bute, and took great interest in all things affecting the island. He was Commodore of the Bute Aquatic Club, and Flag Officer of the Royal Northern Yacht Club, whose regattas in Rothesay Bay generally terminated with magnificent displays of fireworks from Mr. Stewart's steam yacht." Quite a gentleman!

Today, he is mostly wearing a seagull...