A River Runs Through It

I like cities. I like exploring new ones and getting a feel for their story, how they came about, who lived there, their role in history and so on. London is amazing for this. As is New York. Tokyo was harder to appreciate but had it’s own resonance. However Glasgow is my home city, I’ve lived here since I moved to University when I was 17 and I realised today that I take much of it for granted.

I think I’m going to come back to this topic a lot in future but for today I’ll just mention discovering the River Kelvin.

I went for a run this morning and instead of dodging bams and cars on the usual streets of Maryhill and Hillhead I saw a signpost that said Kelvinside Walkway and headed for that. A few minutes later I was running on tree-lined tracks by a river. There were people fishing and I could see fish rises all across the brown stretches. Others were exercising their dogs, sitting reading newspapers, couples and kids were out walking and there were plenty of people running too. Some people said hello and it was all very pleasant.

The bridges looked fantastic, huge brick structures and ornate steel affairs, little wooden footwalks and decidedly dubious rope and stepping stone efforts. I could see buildings from completely new angles and realised that so many tenements must have great views from their back windows.

It’s not the tidiest or most maintained area of parkland in Glasgow but it was refreshing to find. All this five minutes from my flat. I’m going back every run from now on and am looking forward to busting out the watercolours, usually packed until I go up to Lewis, again.




Kelvin Bridge