Grey, gritty Glasgow
(Glasgow University from Kelvingrove: Glasgow, UK)
Yes. It is still snowing here. Intermittently, but still definitely snowing. I must confess that now it has lost its crisp lustre, I’m beginning to hope it will rapidly disappear. In some places, it is the consistency of sand, but in others, a roadside rich brown mush that flicks up from my boots and ends up everywhere. In all the other places, it has become so compacted with boots and shoes that it is just hazardous dirty ice, clogging the pavements.
This was taken during another snow flurry, it looks over towards the university buildings from the park. What I like most about this image is the faded silhouette of the building in the backdrop, then the stark, skeletal tree branches creeping into the frame. The snow just covers one side of them, so they look a little like natural versions of a hallowe’en skeleton outfit; black, with bony white highlights. The branches at the top look like black lightning – that’s what we’ll be expecting next with the weather.
It’s been a long couple of days so I’ve put the heating on (for a bit of a treat) and made myself a whisky toddy*. It’s useful to warm my hands and my insides. Tomorrow I shall be setting up this exhibition in Edinburgh, probably long into the night judging by the travel situation here. Each time it snows, there is utter chaos. I did grin a little to myself yesterday as I watched a grit lorry pull a U turn on a wide, empty street. Well, the driver made an attempt at a turn but the wheels just kept spinning on the sandy snow. The two workers from the back of the lorry had just gritted the whole area manually, but the snow is all encompassing and the benefits of grit are not penetrating far enough into it. As a result, the weary men gazed at the spinning wheels with resigned expressions, not without a little humiliation. I managed to stay composed, but I love a little irony, so after I had passed them, I guiltily admit that I was ever so slightly smiling.
*Toddy. A beverage containing at least: Scotch whisky and hot water. Can be dressed up and improved with any of the following: lemon slice, cloves, cinnamon, honey, sugar. Mine is a simple lemon and clove affair, slumming it in a mug.
– Today Rosie is visiting her Gran and (hopefully) travelling from Glasgow to Edinburgh, UK –
