Yet another summer date landed yesterday. I’ve never known Simple Minds to have such trickle announcements for shows – it’s really weird! Anyway, this one is somewhere near the French Alps or somewhere. I don’t know. I think it’s July? All the info as always is on the SM website and social media platforms. You hardly need me to tell you.
The rest of this week has been a bit of a meander. On Wednesday I had an appointment to get my flu jag and Covid booster. My initial date was for 16 December at Stobhill hospital but that date was far too close to Christmas and even closer to the dates of the three gigs in a row I’m attending leading up to Christmas. I didn’t want to be suffering any potential side-effects during the days of the gigs. I tried to book another date at Stobhill. I wanted something at least a few days if not a couple of weeks earlier. No luck for Stobhill – the next available date I was given was 17 December. Even closer to the gigs/Christmas. So I decided to try another area of the city. I could see one at Castlemilk and decided to check the bus route. The local bus – 75 – runs between Milton and Castlemilk and so I thought if the 75 goes right by where the vaccination centre was I could just get the 75 and it would be straightforward. Yay! The 75 stopped right by the vaccination centre and I could book an appointment for 4 December.
It took the bus AN HOUR to get to the Braes Shopping Centre in Castlemilk. ONE HOUR. I knew it would take ages, but at least I didn’t have to go changing buses and all that guff. It was quite the journey. The bus travels along Saracen Street, down Possil Road, onto Garscube Rd, past Cowcaddens subway, along Cambridge Street, through the city centre via Union, Argyle, Ingram and Glassford Streets, which then turns into Stockwell Street, then over the Clyde onto Gorbals Street, segues into Cathcart Road, then turns onto Aitkenhead Road – cutting through Toryglen to the east and Hampden Park to the west – and down onto Menock Road, then onto Castlemilk Drive and the shopping centre.
Got there in plenty of time. Was done by the time I was due for the actual appointment.
We just missed a 75 to get back and so as to not have to stand about waiting for the next 75 (which was an estimated 22 minutes away), we decided to get the 5 that was going to the city centre. I’d bought a day ticket, and the OH is an old fart and gets free bus travel. The 5 took a different route back to the city. Along Croftfoot Rd, Carmunnock Rd, King’s Ave, Battlefield Rd, Grange Rd, Victoria Rd, Pollokshaws Rd, Gorbals Street to the city centre.
It was a bit of a Southside magic bus ride. Lol. Of course, we still had to wait at the St Enoch stop for the 75 to take us the rest of the way back home but we had less time to wait than we would have had we hung around in Castlemilk.
I’m ssooo unfamiliar with the Southside that as soon as we hit Gorbals Street I was like ‘Nah, dunno nothing. Got no idea where we are.’ Lol. The only point the journey showed me anything vaguely familiar to my eye was, quelle surprise – when we hit Toryglen – complete with a big old advert of local boy Des Clarke smiling doon from a billboard with his presenting partner for his Breakfast show on Heart.
On a more local front, I’ve been listening to the latest series of the Gangster podcast. OMG! Talk about local! Holy guacamole! So, this new series is about two local families – I dare not even print their names or anything. But anyway, it all happens round here. We’re literally the meat in the geographical gangland sandwich – Possilpark on one side, Milton on the other – and us lot in poor Parkhouse shoved in between it all. And stuff was ssoo recent too! The weirdest thing is – I have NEVER felt safer in my life than I do now living here in Glasgow. Where I grew up in Sydney – that was full of drugs and other shit. Really, just such a dodgy place. Luton was okay. I felt much safer there from where I lived in Sydney, but it felt less and less safe as the years went on. And on the day we left Luton to move to Glasgow, we were robbed. The one and only time (so far – and hopefully the last time) I have ever been the victim of a robbery.
So, yeah, this podcast is kinda weirdly gripping for all the wrong reasons. That I know the locations so well and all that makes it feel quite scary. There’s a great soundtrack to it as well – they even play a wee bit of ‘Theme for Great Cities’ in the second episode – a bit ironic I guess given the context. But nah. Despite all that, Glasgow is great, it really is. We just marked our 5th anniversary of moving here and I wouldn’t swap that for the world. I love this city so much. And while Possilpark and Milton fight it out, Parkhouse remains a little oasis of calm between those two foes.
If you want to listen to the podcast, you can find it HERE