Land O'Lakes

Windermere (not Lake Windermere, since mere means lake)

Cumbria was once part of Scotland until the English wrested it away. Now, the area—which contains the Lake District made famous by Wordsworth, Ruskin and others—attracts throngs of visitors and is touted as Britain’s most scenic national park. We took the two-hour train ride there south from Glasgow to see what the fuss was all about and how the 950-square mile district compares to the Highlands. The scenery is indeed beautiful: 17 sparkling lakes, picture-perfect Victorian villages, 7,000 miles of dry stack stone walls to define boundaries and keep the sheep in place, and high mountain passes with sweeping views. It’s a kinder, gentler version of the Highlands, with a less barren and dramatic landscape and a lot more people and places to buy a latte. Glad to have experienced it, but we’ll stick with the wild beauty of our northern neighbor. 

Local Residents, Cumbrian Mountains and Village of Grasmere

Castlerigg Stone Circle, 4,500 years old and counting

Obsessed and Football Crazy

Like most European cities, Glasgow is obsessed with “the beautiful game”—football, or as we know it, soccer. Two major teams call the city home in a fierce rivalry: the Rangers are generally recognized  as a Protestant team with unionists ties to England, while the Celtics are the Catholic team is also beloved in Ireland. Fans are combative - it's almost impossible to eliminate the sectarian emotions the two teams generate. On a sunny Easter afternoon we took the subway to Ibrox Stadium to watch the Rangers in a match against Edinburgh’s Heart of Midlothians (not exactly a fighting name but their fans managed to come up with some fierce chants). Stepping out of the station, we were caught up in a swell of people and mounted police, pop-up sausage roll stands, football scarf vendors, and Union Jacks. Security was tight but not nearly as intimidating as the match we attended in Athens where fans were subject to metal detectors and frisking. Still, cops were stationed at the foot of every section and the opposing team’s fans were segregated from Rangers’ supporters by an empty bank of seats and two officers providing a human barricade on every row. While women were in the stands, soccer is still very much a male spectator sport with lads outnumbering women by at least 100 to 1. And, although alcohol isn’t sold in the stadium, you can be sure all the men made a beeline for the nearby pubs (and beforehand) as soon as the Rangers pulled off a 2 to 1 win.    

Victorian Winter Gardens

Glasgow's People's Palace and Kibble Palace at the Botanic Gardens

Victorian Glaswegians loved their greenhouses or so-called “winter gardens” because they combined two passions: adopting emerging technology and collecting landscape specimens (not to mention providing a place to get out of the rain). The glass and cast iron Kibble Palace in the Botanic Gardens was originally constructed on a lach outside Glasgow in the 1860s. It was moved to its present location, about a five-minute walk from our flat, in 1873 and landscaped. By the early 2000s, the building was in such a dilapidated state that it had to be totally dismantled, restored, and reconstructed. Another favorite winter garden beckons at the other end of the city on Glasgow Green, attached to the People’s Palace, a Victorian pile that houses a museum of social history of Glasgow (particularly life among the poorer folk during the early 20^th century). And one of the best parts - free admission to all. Walking through either of these soaring, fragrant gardens on a rainy day takes us to the tropics.

Glasgow's People's Palace

Spring Has Arrived....I Think

145 Buccleuch Street

Typical Glasgow tenements, four rooms on one floor are now a museum

Agnes Toward might be the ultimate packrat. The ephemera of her life has been painstakingly preserved at the Tenement House Museum, a four-room time capsule that shows what it was like to live in Glasgow for the first half of the 20th century. Agnes and her mother moved into the red sandstone Victorian tenement flat in 1911 and shared a bed in the kitchen alcove while renting out the flat’s only bedroom to a lodger. Agnes stayed on after her mother’s death, remaining in the flat for 54 years and apparently not discarding much during that time. It was a posh residence in that there was a spacious indoor bathroom. Like most Glaswegians, though, Agnes would have used the neighborhood “steamie” or public washroom on a once a week rotation. Her ration card, gas mask, and recipes using dried eggs hint at the hardships of living through two world wars. She seems to have had a full life, however, working as a typist and enjoying holidays at the seashore, regularly corresponding with friends, and attending theatre performances. What she left behind speaks to the dignity of an ordinary woman persevering through good times and bad.
   

A+DS : Design Aid for Small Towns

Architecture + Design Scotland is a unique umbrella organization that provides design assistance to communities across the country.  In getting to know more about their work, I was invited to participate in a workshop to help develop design thinking for Whitburn, a small, 250-year-old community trying to pick itself up after its coal industry collapsed nearly two decades ago. Substitute timber for coal and the town could be in Oregon – a village with a proud heritage largely at the mercy of larger economic and political forces. I spent a day with the workshop team on walking tours, working with locals and speaking with regional technocrats. Many of the processes would be familiar to US designers – an informal meeting to ask a lot of questions, get locals to mark-up maps with problem areas and potential redevelopment sites, and share ideas for the future. (I was able to help connect some of their bicycle transportation planners with Portland’s stable of experts). Nearly two generations of “makers” have largely disappeared and a number of strategies involved developing more hands-on projects to recapture some of the trade skills that were part of the town’s heritage. Oregon could use structured design teams like this. A+DS seems particularly adept at involving children in design projects. In Whitburn, one interesting activity asked schoolchildren to write postcards to their future selves and describe what they hoped their town would be like in 10 or 25 years. Most kids envisioned more sports fields, but a few went deeper and wanted fewer fast-food chains and cleaner, safer streets. As they say, through the eyes of a child…. I’ll be meeting again with the designers as their recommendations jell over the next month. 

  

Glaswegian Dialect, Part Two

Well, it’s been three months since our arrival, and we’re still amused, confused, and often stumped by the local dialect and colloquialisms – and the locals speak quickly. Over the years, Glaswegians seem to have shortened words and invented their own sayings, and made it all the more difficult for someone elsewhere in the UK (or even in Edinburgh) to understand a single word they say. One ubiquitous term is hen, used to greet a female (as in “Hiya hen, how are ye?”) Some phrases are easy to interpret, such as nae borra (no bother) or youse, normally used in the same context as a substitute for my Southern y’all. Some are easier if written, like maheidsburstin (I celebrated too well last night and have an excruciating pain in my head) or the rains stoatin aff the grun (it's raining so hard the rain is bouncing off the ground). And then some are just funny like toon (town) and bahookie (buttocks, bum, or bottom). By the time we leave, our vocabulary will be so confused.