Seagull story
(View over Charing Cross: Glasgow, UK)
I have been meaning to post this image for some time. For those unfamiliar with Glasgow and its city centre, it is cleaved in half, not so much by class, architecture or postcodes, but by the M8 motorway. The west end is on the left hand side of this image and the ‘centre’ is on the right. What you see here is a huge motorway interchange cutting through the old fabric of the city. Thankfully, I am far enough away from it not to hear the constant sighing of nighttime traffic, nor its roar of rush hours. However it is close enough to be very familiar to me – I have walked over this bridge at all hours of the day and night since I have lived in Glasgow, but I like it best at night when it is illuminated in white and red respectively. It feels like the city traffic breathes through these junctions, all of it funnels underneath and past me elsewhere.
Although if I lived on top of the hill, I would hear it through double glazing, I don’t mind listening to the traffic – one of my friends once woke up in to the sound of the M8 traffic at his window and likened it to the sea, the tidal roaring caused by traffic light waits, punctuated with the occasional cry of gulls. The seagulls in Glasgow live on my hill as (in my mind) they are convinced that they are the tall, shoreline cliffs to which they are accustomed.
Earlier this year there was a baby seagull living in my back yard, screeching its head off constantly. It wasn’t capable at that time of producing a recognisable seagull sound, just a desolate crying that interrupted my day. I would look out on it disdainfully whilst doing the dishes or making tea – in retrospect, I should have been more patient with it, but from 3 or 4am each day it would begin its bleak, loud crying, flapping its weak wings, causing my nights to become miserable and my sleep intermittent. I can remember wishing it would disappear. A summer storm caused it a slight foot injury and I saw it hobbling on the ground, still not strong enough to fly. At that point, I became rather more reticent concerning the annoying qualities of this formerly large, useless beast. It became pitiable, and then I noticed someone from the park attempting to entice it with some food and I became suddenly and unexpectedly jealous. This was my seagull baby. It had been annoying me specifically and if anyone should be offering it assistance, it should really be me. After careful thought (and a call to my mother, the oracle) I decided against feeding it, but that I would keep a careful watch on its whereabouts. A few days later, it was gone. Although I kept looking out, just in case, the screeching was over and it had evidently finally found its wings and disappeared, just as I originally hoped it would. I felt like a parent, usually full of complaints until their child moves away. Don’t worry, I’m not broody for a nest full of seabirds, I just miss the little guy sometimes.
– Today Rosie is working and going to a Christmas Party in Glasgow, UK –
