Sun Lounger
(Snoozer in Garnethill Park: Glasgow, Scotland)
The park behind my house is an enigma; it is one of the strangest spaces I know in Glasgow, as it has such a massive range of uses and visitors. Even though it’s a tiny park, just taking up one block (about five tenements long by three across) it seems to be the busiest green spot in the vicinity at any time of the day. Before 9am there are adolescent school pupils having a crafty morning smoke behind the trees, followed by groups of tangled toddlers from local nurseries swarming the swings and the slide. There are a few people who come to feed the resident pigeons with bags of bread, allowing them a break from discarded chips or the remains of other birds. Sometimes the pickings are slim for feathered park goers on Garnethill. Lunchtimes provide a fresh batch of visitors in the form of nearby office workers seeking an hour of sun and fresh air. They sit and chatter with their lunch boxes and packaged sandwiches. They share their lunchtime with children running across the rocks and behind the shrubs, but also with more bejacketed children having what may be their second clandestine smoke of the day. Possibly due to the proximity of St Aloysius Church, there is the occasional wedding photo shoot on particularly radiant Summer days, often in the mid morning or late afternoon.
The evenings and weekends welcome what older people call ‘youths’, and what some locals might refer to as ‘neds’ (non educated delinquents). They engage in multiple and varied activities including drinking intoxicating substances, running around, shouting, singing, public urination and once (that I was unfortunately witness to) open air daylight copulation in a section of shrubbery. It’s unpleasant, perhaps, but it is true. My flatmate and I were slightly concerned that there was a fight, but as we looked down from the kitchen window, we came to realise that it was certainly more amorous than that. Very occasionally there are barbeques, parties and plays performed in the park of a summer evening. One of my current flatmates, Ishbel, has directed and performed in short excerpts of Shakespeare’s plays there. As you can see from this image, people even feel at liberty to take an afternoon public snooze. So as you can gather, Garnethill Park is quite the social hub, be it joyous or unsavoury, it all happens there, and from my kitchen, I have a front row seat, whether I like it or not!
In other news, my Gran made it to Carlisle with no problems, despite the fact she travelled alone from Glasgow on a rather slow bus. The train can manage the same journey in an hour and seven minutes, whilst the bus drags on for two hours. However, being a creature of habit, nobody attempts to suggest the train anymore, as she seems absolutely content to continue arriving that way. After yesterdays stunningly hot weather (in the mid twenties Celsius), the temperature has dropped to a level where I am borrowing jumpers from family members and we have lit the coal fire. I am singularly unimpressed.
– Today Rosie is celebrating Easter Sunday in Carlisle, England –
