A journey into the morning

Hello again

Yesterday I travelled on the early bus to Glasgow, accompanying a friend who has a difficult time ahead of her before she will hopefully go through the rest of her days -- and may there be many of them -- hopping and skipping like the filly she has remained at heart. It has been painful to see her hobbling about in pain at each step she takes and I can't wait to see her move more freely again.
It was, as they say, a cold and crisp winter's morning in Oban. Being December, the town has been decked out in all manner of weird and wonderful fairy lights. Waiting for the bus I was shivering with cold when I took this picture of the great fir tree in the centre of George Square:So we sat on the bus and looked into the morning and couldn't stop ourselves telling each other, 'look at that, isn't it gorgeous?!' It was ridiculous, only it was also almost like being in fairyland. But see for yourself and for yourselves:
And then we arrived at Inveraray, where the bus has a verybrief stop -- often seems to me it's so the driver can indulge in a smoke, but perhaps it's the smoking passengers who need the stop as urgently. No other excuse to get off, unless you have business there, because not a cat or seagull moves about, nor is a single café open before 10AM. So you'd have been in for a very cold one-hour wait outside these venerable walls...On the journey went, along beautiful, peaceful Loch Fyne and up the other side of the mountains -- my favourite stretch along a very scenic route. The locals don't much like the road up to the Rest and be thankful: it's prone to landslides and has a traffic light in the middle. When I have been on that road by car I've had to negotiate my way slowly past herds of cattle and flocks of seemingly brainless sheep...
But yesterday, the sun was a master in contrasts: Over the pass we went and were blinded!
My camera and I recovered as the bus was again plunged into the shadows of the glen.
I could go on and on, literally, but it's getting late here.
Take care, wherever you are -- road conditions may be treacherous.
Sláinte! and Peace

Getting here, take one (here being Oban, Argyll, Scotland)

Hello again

In spite of having loads of work, and some of it very near its deadline, I want to catch up on putting some visual reminders on this blog of my journey eleven days ago that took me from Glasgow to Oban by bus.

It was a gloriously beautiful early evening -- see for yourselves:

By about 6:15 PM we were on our way out of Glasgow (the bus leaves Glasgow Buchanan bus station at 6PM). Glasgow is a fast-growing, rapidly developing city -- vibrant, metropolitan, global, Mediterranean, Asian – and very Scottish.The ubiquitous wheeliebins or trash containers at the end of a stately area of Glasgow's "West End".On the fringe of the city, a huge plot of land that must once have been a landfill site -- the stench was unbelievable, and the vast area was littered with plastic.
Twenty minutes later we were already well beyond the Erskine Bridge - an eye-catching cable-stayed structure that reminds me of the road bridge in Pereira, Colombia... -- hey, we live in a globalised world where structures resemble each other all over the world. See for yourself:
(Cable-stayed road bridge in the city of Pereira, Risaralda, Colombia, Sept. 2004 -- this bridge spans a heavily populated ravine and is actually more of a cable suspension bridge than Erskine Bridge.)

Back to my bus ride from Glasgow-Buchanan bus station to Oban: You know you're in Scotland when you see views like this, of Loch Lomond, for example:
and of Loch Long (I think):
... beautiful old humpbacked bridges like this one (there are quite a few of them dotted all over the place, all designed in the 19th century by the same engineer, Thomas Telford; the most famous example must be the Clachan Bridge a little south of Oban, aka The Bridge over the Atlantic -- see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clachan_Bridge).
... and views of Loch Fyne:
We stopped briefly at Inveraray. The driver had a smoke and a chat with a few locals. This gave me time to step out and take a picture of a stunningly beautiful white-blossomed Japanese cherry tree: