What a wreck
(Wrecks in the Basin: Bowling, Scotland)
Here’s an insight into a part of Ying’s holiday here last week. This was taken on the last day that he was in the UK when we attempted to cycle to Loch Lomond, but only managed halfway. This is the ‘Bowling Basin’, so called (presumably) because it is in a place called Bowling and it is a basin of sorts. I have noticed these shipwrecks from the train to Dumbarton which runs just behind where Ying is stood, and I made a mental note to stop at Bowling one day. Fortuitously we inadvertently cycled there for lunch so I got the photographs I intended to take ‘one day’*. It was a beautiful day last Friday – completely and utterly perfect weather; a slight breeze, sun, mid to high twenties – not too hot to cycle in, but warm enough for comfortable t shirt, no jackets – it is the weather I love the most, warm but not hot. It was the sort of day that sparkles, and bewitches everybody into doing slightly less work than they intended.
The rotting boats were not large, but they were quite atmospheric and wonderful – I’ve never seen wrecked boats so close before so I was interested in why they have simply been left to waste in the shallow harbour. I think they add a tough of derelict charm to an otherwise be-yachted and dinghyed area – it was clearly a smartish marina for weekend sailors. It’s no Monaco, but by Glasgow standards, quite ordered and fresh looking, so to find these old girls, festering away in a secluded part of the basin was a bit of a surprise. I coaxed Ying into creeping through a fence to take photographs from a better point and I’m glad we did it – the bridge in the background is the impressive Erskine Bridge, a structure I had never realised the scale of until we cycled underneath its enormous struts. It was a grand day out, and you’ll be glad to hear that my rump has fully recovered from the battering of two long cycles on consecutive days.
Back to the now; this year, the Art School Degree Show has crept up on me and I’m completely unprepared for it. As I remember, this time last year I was frantically printing new business cards and getting a website up and running. How time flies. Anyway, tonight I’ll be schmoozing with lots of friends, acquaintances and former classmates and tutors and hopefully making new contacts into the bargain.
* ‘one day’ can translate as ‘maybe never’ in some instances.
– Today Rosie is attending the Glasgow School of Art City Night in Glasgow, Scotland –
[...] Bowling Basin. You might recall I cycled the exact route last year, ending up looking at shipwrecks [here] and posing atop a giant bicycle [here]. It is a route that winds through Glasgow’s urban sprawl, [...]