Scotland - Strathclyde country park

 I had set my alarm for 6.45am as I had offered to give Vicky a lift to her first volunteering shift. This was at the Glasgow BMX centre, on the west side. Google maps said 25mins, and 25mins it was. Probably because, Google said, it was a Scottish bank holiday. It most certainly did not take 25mins to return. Some kind of accident where about 16 lanes merged into two caused a long delay. Other drivers didn’t help, throwing themselves across the 16 lanes in an effort to gain an advantage. Eventually I got to the bit where there were just two lanes, with one of them having the old flashing Red Cross above. As everyone knows this means a heavy fine in England and no one drives in a lane under a Red Cross. Great, I thought, now we will get moving. Alas a Red Cross in Scotland means drive faster in that lane then dive in a millisecond before the accident. It took me 45 mins to get back, but Ian was waiting with a coffee. 

With Vicky Volunteering and Alex settled on a long run, Ian and I decided to try out my new birthday bunion protecting boots and walk around the lake. A path through the woods took us past the rear of ‘M and D world, Scotlands major theme park.’ Very few souls had ventured in, and the rides were old and dilapidated. The few seemed to be having a good time though. Next up we went in search of the old Roman bath house and Roman fort (site of). No joy here. There were signs up, but no sign of anything remotely Roman. We soon appeared by the lake and a food and drink shack where we bought a coffee and went to sit by the lake. The cappuccino was one of the ones you buy with powder in. And it had sugar as they do. 

By now we were at the bottom of the lake, and rounding the bend we came to the Rowing Club. This had a very nice food shack outside with a real coffee machine! We will know for next time. 

As we walked up the far side of the lake Alex came running up. Then past and on toward his tent. He did stop for a chat though. We finished the loop by having a look at the front of the M and D super theme park. There was a pizza/burger place blaring out music, but with no customers. 

The lake from the coffee bench

Ian looking at a weir 

 A weir

The lake from the top

We retraced tour steps through the woody path and landed in plenty of time to collect Vicky from the station. She had been on field of play, picking up bikes when they crashed, and in the information tent, where she happened to be when a torrential rain shower passed over. Lucky her.

Vicky on field of play

On the way to collect her Ian and I had called at Lidl for vittels and got some barbecue stuff. The evening was dry but cool so Ian and I sat out cooking while Vicky and Alex sat in watching cycling. Washing up done we all went to bed.

Hard at work

OS Watch

Our walk around the lake

Neighbour watch

The majority of people on site seem to be here for the cycling, there are loads of different nationalities. There are also loads of feral kids running around on BMXSs with numbers on which we presume are competitors at Vickys event.