Page 20 - Through a glass brightly

From Glenda at 13.30
Letter attached! Please let
me know if you can’t open
it! I can attach different
versions but it might not
‘went.’ I had just finished
creating a QEGGS email
‘Group’ when Val’s
'second thread’ came
through! It’s much easier just using Val's ‘cc’ as the email addresses to everyone. I know you will all hate me for saying this but I actually dictate my emails (and much else) which means that I can sit at my computer and stare out of the window and think big (or empty!) thoughts! It does have its downside when I go to the front door for the post and find my
whole conversation with the postman typed out neatly into my email!
Life in Glasgow appears to be exceptionally similar to life everywhere else and on the basis that you really don’t want to know that I am reduced to washing the duvets et cetera I thought I might concentrate on one aspect of life in Glasgow.
I live about 400 yards from the Botanic Gardens and although I have stayed (as we say in Glasgow) in this house for 41 years I have never visited the Botanics regularly. It’s a place to take
visitors, to show off the glories of the Kibble Palace, to
stick my fingers into man-eating plants and to invite
friends to sit on “our” bench. Of course, some benches now
have other notices! And some jokes!So it’s been one of the
many delights of the “lockdown” that I am now visiting every day. The first part of the garden is, like most Botanical Gardens, laid out with greenhouses, open spaces and the usual memorial seats. There are sections set aside for a chronological history of plants, flowers for bee
pollination (with the actual beehives), two very sturdy and challenging play areas for children, a Herb Garden, World Roses and their uses et cetera. My preferred route is to move on from this area and down to the River Kelvin which is still flowing fast and free with all the winter’s rain. Over hundreds of years
it has cut a huge gorge out of the cliffs within the gardens and standing by the river looking at the great red sandstone bluffs towering above it is hard to believe that I am in what used to be the second city in the Empire. The River Kelvin continues north on “The Kelvin Way” to join up with “The West Highland Way” of which I am sure you have heard. The river flows south out through Kelvingrove, another great Park (with its folk song ‘Kelvingrove’ – click on the
19