(Tourists)
My Canadian visitors are safely returned, sent back replete (I hope ) with castles and parks, and Scottish breakfast, Nessie tea-towels, and shortbread tins.
It’s always illuminating to revisit places which are so second nature as to be unremarkable, in the company of those to whom they are fresh and new.
I would certainly not have gone to the Burrell and the Art Gallery (what do you mean which? the Kelvingrove Art Galleries) on the same day, and also squeezed in a Kelvin way walk, pub visit (the Doublet – “old Glasgow boozer”), and Indian meal (a Glasgow curry – actually the Shish – for some “the” Glasgow Curry).
We tend to ignore the familiar.
While I have heard the organ played at Kevingrove (maybe forty years! or more ago), I would not have gone out of my way for a performance, and I would have missed an experience.
Crookston castle, I visited many times with my young sons, but never since, and the visiting company lent it a freshness of perspective, requiring me to rehearse my small local history, and reconsider its antiquity and history.
I had a full week of revisting old haunts, and of course, recalling old stories. They’ve never really gone away, but they like to be taken out and dusted, and maybe treated to fresh lick of myth. It makes them “more real”.
We tend to ignore the familiar, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to re-see these things a-new, but it’s left me wondering what other “familiar” aspects of my life I am overlooking, and need to find ways to review.
We should welcome a shake up in our routine every once in a while.
Next time on IaDL: Hey! I forgotten about this…
Dalmallyfest the Asylum 