McBoating on Sonya-Day #7

Friday 24th June 2016

We left Kirkintilloch at 9am expecting a wet morning’s travelling to Glasgow, as it happened we have been spared most of the rain today. You do not realise that you are entering the environs of Glasgow until the last minute as the canal approach is very rural. Between our overnight moorings and the Glasgow road bridge we happened across a weed collecting boat busy gathering up all the loose weed and dumping it onto the offside bank. The driver kindly gave us a wave as we passed.

During passage of the stretch between Bishopbriggs and Glasgow we came across more horseflies than Ive ever seen before – our with the Deet spray to do my legs having killed three who were taking a meal from me. We made our way to the Scottish Waterways offices before Spiers Wharf as they advertise visitor moorings without needing to get the bridges lifted for access to the wharf proper. They were mostly full of non-overnight moorers leaving us just enough space to squeeze in before the bascule bridge. My work colleague John arrived and had lunch with us aboard before kindly offering to provide transport for us to get to the Riverside museum. A lovely museum, friendly, welcoming and inclusive. Scotland’s public museums are still free, it showed as there were families with small children just out for amusement – the learning is a side effect.

Having seen the bathroom on the tall ship Brenda is thinking about doing up Jannock’s bathroom.

We took the bus back into the city centre as we wanted to have a wander around. The driver was very good being both helpful to those not familiar with sterling as well as providing a running commentary on the buildings and places we passed. After a couple of hours wandering around enjoying the wonderful architechture of the centuries we ended up in George Square just as a demo was gathering. It was an anti Donald Trump demo that got somewhat hijacked by the Scottish Independance MkII protestors – apparently they voted to remain in the EU whilst the UK “are dragging them out against their will”.

We ate in a wonderful Greek restaurant called Elia where all the staff spoke fluent Glaswegian as well as fluent Greek. We decided that this was the best Greek food we’ve had for a very long time and was better than some we’d had in Greece or Crete. Conveniently, this restaurant was right next door to the Counting House, a Wetherspoons pub that used to be RBS HQ, so it was in for a nice pint after the meal.

Then back to Union Street to catch a bus back to the boat. We asked if the bus went to Maryhill and the driver said No. A bus inspector that we had collared earlier had said this was the bus we needed so we explained to the driver that we were heading towards Spiers Wharf and so that was OK. When we sat down a local got chatting to us and pointed out that if we stayed on the bus for another two stops we would end up nearer our boat. The driver called us when we got to the Spiers Wharf stop but we asked to stay on for another two and then explained what had happened as we got off. A quick walk up the hill brought to where Sonya was moored.

The only rain we had was while John was with us on the boat for lunch so we’ve been very lucky. Not so sure about tomorrow as we have got nineteen locks (including a ‘drop lock’ – never done one of those before) all the way down to Bowling where the canal meets the Clyde.

Graham