Still Life with Boat

Radio Mornings

The radio is quite good. No adverts. Great diversity. Humour. Fun intellectual and word challenges. DJs easily use the word hegemony. Favorite quote: "It's like a joke, but not as funny." There is much poetry including a very moving poem written for Amy Winehouse and Ginsberg reciting "Howl."

Trip to Arran

I set my alarm this morning. The first time since Tudela. I actually have a cell phone now; I accepted the first offer after a neighbor fetched me at the library to tell me my Gran was waiting on an ambulance to go to the hospital. A concession to the norms and eases of the moment as another type of freedom--always though at whose cost. Perhaps it is better to put out the neighobor than the earth mined and workers underpaid to manufacture my phone. However, it makes everyone easier to have me having a phone; so, I caved in. There were only two other times I took a phone for calling purposes. The first was when I went to Roma for the day, and I was meeting up with Luciana later after she had spent the morning with her mother. And, the other in Perugia when we were meeting Ayana at the train station, and she wasn't there and Vivi and Pietro drove to the other possible stops, and I stayed with Pietro's phone at the main station for them to keep in touch. In Tudela and London I borrowed the alarm clock on hosts' phones. In Italy, my friends woke me and once I think I had an alarm clock. I can probably count on my hands the number of times in the past few months that I have had to wake up for a specific time. Today though was different. I wasn't sure what time I had to wake. I wasn't sure what time the ferry was. I just knew for a trip like this I would have to get up early; so I did. I took my time and bathed, sewed up the holes by the backpocket of my jeans while I ate breakfast, and then made myself a lunch--the only bag I packed, and I will tie it to my belt loop.

I took the number 11 bus almost from the first stop to almost the last. I sat at the top. All the way, I could see the hills of Arran slate blue jags of shapes on the horizon. The weather has been embarrasingly good here and only a few clouds clustered like cotton tufts above the highest peaks. Oh sleeping warrior. And the strips of blues rainbow on the water as morning haze burns away.

I got there about half an hour after the second ferry of the day, and so right now I am waiting for the third ferry at half twelve. I thought I would poke about Adrossan because I have not spent much time in the center, but after walking for a wee bit and not finding a spot that I wanted to go to, I decided to hop the bus back into Salcoats and swing by the Heritage Center to check my internet and then get a coffee and donought at the Kandy Bar.

Some Thoughts on Sky

Weekend in Glasgow

I am sitting here in my cousin's flat in Glasgow. I just had rhubarb pie with a dollop of double cream for breakfast, orange juice and coffee. It is another sunny day. I went running in Queens Park. I love the trails made by people using the park.

On Friday we went to the museum. I must have been hazier than I even realized then because I do not know the name of the museum. It was near Glasgow University on the west end. We just wandered about. It was large and beautiful. One wonders from where the wealth to build with such precision. I could not believe that I had never been to the museum before. It was a place we would have loved as kids but rarely were we taken into Glasgow. We went to castles in Ayrshire, Burns Cottage, the Electric Brae, Porten Cros, Largs, Milport, Arran, the Healy Brae.

Sunset, Crosshouse Hospital