Monkey's Blog - with a little help from Alice

Spring along the canal
[ PHOTO UPDATE 21 APRIL 2017 ]

It was a beautiful sunny day last week, so we went for a walk in Harrison Park. The afternoon sun was so bright, the daffodils at first looked somewhat faded, though they weren't at all so. Ba just loves being well and truely "In Nature."

In the second, closer shot, you can see the daffodils in something more like their true colours. [ Click or tap any photos here to see them even larger. ]

Then we walked along the canal towpath, where we could see the boats and barges, and the bridge ahead.

A little further along, we admired the view from the boarding platform beside a houseboat. The family on it told us it is really lived in.




Ba thought that would be terribly romantic, but Alice soon put her right by talking about the cold, the lack of space, and maybe even, the possibility of rats. So she changed her opinion. Here we are in the next photo, looking back at it and towards the park again.

Pausing en route, we saw this lovely brightly-coloured duck. Alice says it's a Mallard. See the RSPB website for more information - and hear how they quack, too.

Jut a minute later, along came Mrs Mallard as well, not as brightly dressed as her mate. I wished we'd brought some bread, to scatter and try to persuade them to come even closer.

Ba was glad we hadn't brought bread, as that's not their normal, natural diet.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds say they eat seeds, acorns and berries, plants, insects and shellfish.

Alice could remember feeding them stale bread when her sons were still tiny, and they seemed to enjoy eating it, all the same.

If you go for full-size on this image, you can see them in even more detail.

We paused here under this old tree for a bit of a breather.

Then heading up towards the bridge, we looked back again.

Lots of people had come out to enjoy the sunshine and take a walk, or ride, or run even, along this super pathway.

What a perfect reflection in the canal of these two matching rowing boats. Alice spent ages getting into just the right position to take this one: but, I have to admit, after she'd got it into her computer and edited, it was worth having waited around for her.

Update with the photo here!

This 90° version was suggested by Alice's grand-daughter Angelina, who recently turned 11 (see the previous post below this one.) Just a little editing has produced a wonderful trompe l'oeil effect.

Under it is the view from the bridge itself, looking back.

Looking over in the other direction, we could see the next part of our walk.

Ba really likes this photo, as the tender green buds fill the foreground. Click!

You can now explore all the way to Falkirk! If you want to go the whole hog, take a look at the walkhighands website, where it explains how to get to (or rather from) Glasgow.

We turned off the route well before that as Alice was getting a bit tired, and anyway we had to divert from the towpath to get to our planned destination, traipsing through the uninspiring Meggetland modern estate.

We needed to do some shopping at the supermarket here. A totally different sort of pleasure, after which we were glad to take the bus back home and get a cup of tea. [ This photo was actually taken in July 2015, but it looked just the same in April 2017. ]