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Published: January 16th 2022
Anyone else gone wandering in Glasgow and found themselves in the backstreets of Gotham city, USA instead? No? Well it happened to myself and Glyn today, I kid you not.
The alarm went off at 7.30am, and it being a Sunday means only one thing, I’m on Wade holiday where I often get up earlier than I would for work so that we can cram in as much as possible until we both pass out exhausted at the end of the day. Glyn was perturbed at me setting an alarm that’s not on the hour. I find this hilarious and asked that we set if for 7.12am, I got frowned at for that.
A walk that should have taken 40 minutes, didn’t because we went off piste a few times, took us through areas with awesome architecture. It has since has become run down with tatty shops at ground level of once grand buildings and the streets were strewn with litter and random doors propped up underneath a bridge. It was very quiet and we could cross the roads without having to pay much attention.
Randomly we came across a truck park full of movie trailers, catering and
generators. Were there any movie stars around? No. In fact it was too early for people full stop.
Continuing towards the cathedral, we both clocked lots of Christmas trees casually leaning against a shop and then snow. But it hasn’t snowed, so how? Upon close inspection the snow was polystyrene and road salt, it looked very convincing and I couldn’t help walking carefully as though it really was slippy. Looking around we spotted more incongruous objects such as American style bins, posters and hydrants. I had to get to the bottom of this.
A bored looking security guy was nearby and I squeezed him for intel. It was a movie set and we were welcome to walk around and take pics, but no crossing any barriers. I asked the name of the film and was told “Cherry Hill”. I inquired are the starring actors local famous, British famous or worldwide famous. I was told American famous. I wasn’t overly impressed, we had Glenn Close and Gemma Atterton come to Stoke to film a zombie apocalypse film because Stoke didn’t need much set dressing to look post-apocalyptic. In fact they had to tidy it up and remove the scary
looking locals to make way for far more family-friendly zombies.
I wasn’t satisfied with the Cherry Hill response so I asked two nearby cyclists. One guy had to repeat himself three time because I couldn’t understand his accent (colour me embarrassed) but he suggested Batgirl. Tbh it was obvious when Glyn spotted a store called ‘Gotham Roll Records’ and then a street sign with Gotham and Cherry Hill (I see what happened there!). Glyn checked out IMDB and sure enough, Batgirl is listed as currently in production starting Michael Keaton and Brendan Fraser.
Heading towards the cathedral we passed a cat cafe with some lovely fur babies washing in the windows. Despite putting on my most pleading and pathetic face, Glyn wouldn’t let me go in. He claims he thought it was shut. Hmmm.
The cathedral was big with two men in mourning suits at the door, so I thought there must be a funeral about to start, but turns out it was a standard service. Seriously, why put yourself through wearing that clobber for a standard day?
We were more interested in the Necropolis, where many of the tombs are large enough to house a
small family but have more security than most homes. The Necropolis is a Victorian graveyard on a small hill. The richer the corpse, the higher up the hill they are buried with statues, pillars, gazebos and other extravagant memorials to people long since forgotten. Simply put, a rich dead men’s dick measuring competition under a thin veneer of religion and respectability. The highlight for Glyn was finding the grave of the author of Wee Willie Winkie. Bless, he was pretty low on the hill.
We had to check out at midday so started that walk back, via the film set again so I could take a casual stroll with my 360 camera. I don’t feel self conscious with the camera on a long stick just so long as I can avoid all eye contact. Glyn spotted that I was on the receiving end of a hard stare from a security woman but I was oblivious.
After collecting our luggage we filled our Fiat 500 to the brim. The bonus of not flying is that I can bring loads of camera gear: multiple lenses, tripod, monopod, drone, triggers, flashes and the various things I collect that always mean to
use. Plus I’ve brought my Oodie and a blanket, yes they take up loads of space, you never know, we could get stranded on a lonely mountain road with no phone signal - we are renowned for getting lost. Glyn’s brought a giant plug-socket tower because quite often there’s only 1 or 2 sockets in a hotel room and we always have lots of stuff to charge. I still laughed when it emerged from his suitcase.
We drove the over-stuffed car to the West end of Glasgow, which appears to be the posh end and parked up on the street to visit the botanic gardens. Being a sunny winter’s day, everyone else in Glasgow was also there, however the Scots adhere to social distancing rules and mask-wearing far better than any English place I’ve been to in a long while, so it was all good. The 19th century glass and wrought iron glasshouses had a one way system going through them, with park workers monitoring how many people went in indoor areas, you know, like there was a pandemic going on. It was refreshing compared to home where people proudly flout the rules and refer to mask-wearers ‘sheeple’. I
reckon the Botanic Gardens are amazing in the summer, there are fantastic plants from all over the world, but they’ve wound down for the winter.
Mid-afternoon, we set off for Kingussie. I let Glyn drive out of Glasgow because some of the roads were practically Los Angeles in that they had ridiculous amounts of lanes going all over the shop. The sun started setting as we got closer to the Highlands and there was distant snow on the mountains, only patches though, didn’t look enough to even slide down on a plastic tray. The thick cloud diffused the light and we got a lovely pink and purple sunset, with the land matching the sky. I pulled up to take a photo, but it was cold without my coat and I soon gave up.
If Kingussie was in England it would be considered a village but in Scotland it’s a town, with one main road where all the action is. The action on a cold winter evening was the chip shop being open. We have two nights booked in a family hotel that’s really a large house. They have two cats (hooray!) and one giant but dopey Rottweiler. We
are the only guests so got upgraded to the bedroom with en suite bathroom.
Edit: if you’ve read Glyn’s blog of the same day, you may have seen some nonsense about me getting angry with a white rock and mowing it down in the car. The true story is the I made a wrong turn in the dark into a tight narrow area lined with large rocks painted white. It was a tight turn so hard to see the rocks, I asked Glyn “are there just three rocks” and he said “yes”. And then he said “plus that other one” as I hit the fourth. Apparently the small rock wasn’t counted as a full rock. Anyway, I had to get out of the car to put the very heavy rock back in place. If the car is damaged I couldn’t tell because it seriously needs a clean.
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Home and Away
Bob Carlsen
I'm following your journey...
as I will be touring Scotland in August. I hope the heather in bloom and the midges are dead!