During the summer we took a trip to Glasgow to roam around my old haunts in the West End. (I spent seven years at The University, Glasgow, doing my B. Sc. and Ph. D.)

Actually we frequently go across, the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery is always worth a visit; so was the Transport Museum till its recent closure preparatory to a move and Byres Road is always interesting.

The Botanic Gardens are just over Great Western Road from Byres Road.

I took some photos of the big glasshouse known as the Kibble Palace. It’s hard to get the whole thing in one shot. You can still see the BBC Scotland sign on the building over the road behind it. It’s a while now since they decamped down to Pacific Quay, over the Clyde from the SECC and Armadillo.

Below is the main dome from the side nearest the Kelvin river.

This one was taken through the railings separating the Gardens from Queen Margaret Drive.

There were loads of people about. There usually are. The Botanics is a well-loved Glasgow haunt.

Last week I took a trip ‘Doon The Watter‘ (except I went by road rather than boat.)

Birds on foreshore at Greenock

On the shore at Greenock were these birds which at first I thought were oystercatchers but the plumage isn’t quite right and the beaks are too orange. Does anyone have any idea what they are?

Yesterday I drove my son and his girlfriend to Prestwick for them to pick up a flight to Belgium. Lucky so and sos.

It was a good day for it what with the sun splitting the pavements (as my father used to say.)

To break the trip up the good lady and I dropped into an antique centre at Garrion on the way back. The centre, which is part of a complex including a Garden Centre, various retailing ventures and the obligatory tea/coffee shop, is named after the two bridges which carry the A71 across the Clyde a couple of hundred metres west from there.

We didn’t actually buy anything yesterday but I include this link just in case anyone wants to go.

The bridges themselves are quite scenic so I took a few pictures.

This is the older bridge (the northern of the two.) Due to the short distance between the two bridges I couldn’t get the whole of this one in a single frame so this is actually a stitched together amalgam of two photographs.

This is the newer bridge which has a nice arched span. It was built in 2001. The two act as a kind of roundabout a bit like a motorway flyover. Westbound traffic takes the new bridge, eastbound traffic the old one.

Here’s the view from the southern bridge.

Scotland in summer. Don’t you just love it?