These are the good lady’s photographs. She took them while I was at one of the play-off games at The Rock, in May last year.

River Leven and Dumbarton from Dumbarton Rock:-

River Leven and Dumbarton with Ben Lomond in background:-

Rivers Leven and Clyde at Dumbarton:-

River Leven and Dumbarton From Dumbarton Rock. As a child the good lady used to play on the rocks on the riverside below where this was taken from:-

Somewhere else she used to play was in this burn by the Swing Park. Well, that’s what it was always called when I was young. It’s apparently known officially as the East End Park:-

I think my only previous posting about Dumbarton Rock was here. Those photos were taken from across the River Clyde at Langbank in the former Renfrewshire.

There is a more familiar view from the quayside (of the River Leven) at Dumbarton itself:-

Boats on River Leven, Dumbarton:-

River Leven, Boats and Levengrove Park:-

Picture shamelessly stolen from Pie and Bovril, contributed by user AlwaysAPar.

Dumbarton F C’s stadium in the shadow of Dumbarton Rock:-

In celebration of the mighty Sons’ forthcoming appearance in the Challenge Cup final (oh, all right then; the Irn Bru Cup final) this is a poem by Dumbarton FC’s poet in residence Stephen Watt.

The accompanying video has some goood views of Dumbarton Rock, the town and the stadium plus footage from the semi-final win down in Oswestry.

The words as posted on the club’s website are here.

A couple of weeks ago, mostly on the good lady’s volition, we travelled to see the Great Tapestry of Scotland which was on show at the Scottish Parliament building. Its exhibition there finishes sometime in September and it will eventually end up in Melrose when the new rail line to the borders is complete.

It’s quite an impressive collection – of embroidery rather than tapestry but Hey-ho – of over 100 panels stitched by volunteers from round Scotland each one illustrating a piece of Scottish history.

I may get round to posting other views of the panels but this one featured Dumbarton Rock, which in 870 AD (or 870 CE if you prefer) fell to the Vikings:-

on the way back to where we’d parked I captured the building below on pixels. I’d passed it many times before in the car but never stopped near enough by. It’s the TSB bank in East Norton Place (London Road) Edinburgh.

The pillars on the corners are good. The street sign on the bank also says East Norton Place. From the other side the pillars are again stand outs. The style of the number 30 is nicely deco too.

The first commercially successful steamship in Europe sailed up the Clyde on its maiden voyage 200 years ago this month.

For an image see here. It shows a painting of the ship passing Dumbarton Rock. It’s a detail from a picture painted in 1914 by William Daniell.

The ship was commisioned by Henry Bell and called the Comet. She was named for a prominent comet that had appeared in the skies the year before. Bell became known as the father of steam navigation.

This tale and the inspiration for the ship from the earlier Charlotte Dundas was a familiar one to children of my generation but with the demise of shipbuilding on the Clyde I don’t know how much of it today’s youngsters will hear about.

There were substantial celebrations for the 100^th anniversary and again in 1962. This year‘s have been more muted.

At least two obelisks to the memory of Bell were erected on the banks of the Clyde and a replica of the Comet can still be seen in Port Glasgow.