Scotland

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Aye Write '09

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The Aye Write literary festival lineup is pretty good - and for the first time since I moved to "Glasga", I can actually go! I have booked tickets to see Jonathan Coe and Andrew Crumey in conversations with Rodge Glass and I'm rather excited. You must understand that I've been used to the Copenhagen Book Fair where we got celebrity chefs and D-list reality stars flogging their books (with the occasional AS Byatt thrown in for good measure). Aye Write! is considerably more my thing. Coe is one of my favourite contemporary authors and I'm in the process of becoming a Crumey convert.

Also, a big thank you to some of my Glasgow friends who floored me the other day with their kindness, thoughtfulness and generosity. You guys rock. You really do.

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On the Town

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13Oh, my Glasgow. She is pretty even if we do not see the sun all that often and it rains a great deal. She is pretty. We went into town today, to the Lighthouse (not as in Virginia Woolf, but as in The Lighthouse, the Scottish centre for architecture, design and urbanity).

Other Half wanted to see the Donna Wilson exhibition as he went to art school with her. We also fancied some free books.

In the end, we got away with eleven free books on a number of topics: food design, twentieth century architecture, re-imagining Scottish cities etc. Some very cool, interesting and useful stuff. I somehow also managed to buy a book on the Wiener Werkstätte because I'm a sucker for early twentieth-century design. Ahh..

Che Camille is not far from The Lighthouse. I like the place a lot and right now it feels like one of Glasgow's best-kept secrets. It won't stay that way. The boutique/design workshop takes up most of the upper floor of one of the many Victorian buildings lining the shopping street - and getting up there to see what they have done with the space would be enough of a reason, but they are also featuring fabulous, quirky clothes/furniture from young designers. I cannot afford anything (except tiny handknits which I obviously prefer to create myself), but I do surreptitiously feed off the fantastic sense of synergy created by its owner, Camille.

Tomorrow Other Half and I will be off to Che Camille's Clothes Swap/Customise Yr Clothes workshop. Should be fun.

16(this is the staircase in the Lighthouse Tower. pretty, no?)

Thank you for your advice on what to do when the knitting mojo just isn't there. I have finished one sleeve of my grey jumper and will embark on the other tonight. I just think I hate knitting sleeves, to be honest. Then I'll be knitting the collar which is the bit which really interests me with this jumper.

I have two different types of collars in mind. One is an asymmetrical bow-like construct (vaguely reminiscent of half-a-fan neckwarmer (thank you, mooncalf, for the lovely example) for which I have no pattern plus I'll have to turn the construction around ninety degrees. I'm either going mad or am stretching my knitting abilities. Possibly both). The other idea revolves around a tube-like construct which I could attach with buttons. The latter is not half as elegant as the former but will not involve me trying to reverse engineer an unknown pattern and then turn it on its side.

Le sigh.

Next time I'm making a jumper, I'll use a pattern.

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It Explains A Lot

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Thanks, Palnatoke:

"Every June, Scotland is towed 1000 miles south so it can have a summer. Only 10% of people in Scotland know this."

And here's visual proof.

PS. I was reminded by Stuart that I haven't mentioned this piece by Andrew O'Hagan. I read it this weekend and I was disgusted by its smugness, sense of superiority and general air of condescension. Fie.

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On the Bus

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Sometimes I just feel overwhelmingly foreign or Other. I was heading home from a knitting meet-up, when my bus was invaded by half-cut neds. They started hurling bits of food at people and a tall black guy stood up to tell them to show other people respect. Ah. That led to other people proclaiming "Eh mate, they're jus weans an' the wan nae showing any respect is you."* And the bus driver didn't want to get involved and the swearing got worse and the racist insults kept coming (not just from the neds). I kept my head down, said nothing and texted Other Half so he'd pick me up from the bus stop. I felt rotten because I did not have the guts to stand up beside the sensible guy asking for some order - but I clearly do not speak with a Glaswegian accent and I did not know how I'd handle getting slurs directed at me.

So.

I finished knitting a beautiful hat during my Christmas holidays and I had things I wanted to say about New Year's resolutions, but I won't write about these things tonight. Instead I'll go have some tea and snuggle up beside my Other Half while I try to remember I actually do love living in Glasgow.

*) My transcription skills are sorely lacking sometimes.

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Aww!

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The weather is lovely: all sunny with crisp air. I went shopping for Christmas presents today and am almost finished buying for the Danish side of the family. Almost. On my way home from town, I met up with Other Half and we went for a walk through autumnal woodlands. And we saw this little cutie just a three-minute walk away from Dumbarton Road, one of the busiest roads in our part of town: