By Grand Central Station, I stood up and sang

Today’s guest picture comes from my brother Andrew who came across a collection of 1000 year old Peruvian bottles.  I am not entirely sure that I would like to own bottles that were giving me  a hard stare.

In spite of the title of today’s post, it was actually Glasgow Central Station where we stood up and sang today and we didn’t even get a glass of champagne from the station bar.

After our hard day of practice, workshops and a concert yesterday, the Carlisle Community Choir on Tour had a more relaxed day today, wandering about the streets of Glasgow and surprising many unwary passers by suddenly forming a mass and bursting into song.

Nobody threw anything and many people applauded heartily so we enjoyed ourselves.

Luckily the weather was in a very kindly mood too and blessed us with brilliant sunshine.

We were based around George Square where the interior of the impressive City Chambers has starred in many movies as an important building supposedly in many different countries.

The surrounding architecture likes to throw in a column or two where possible.

And there is an eclectic mix of styles on every side.

There is absolutely nothing that a Glaswegian likes more than sticking a traffic cone on a statue and they had surpassed themselves here, we thought, not just with two cones but a pumpkin too.

We sang in Central Station and in three or four other locations before ending up back in George Square for our last effort.

Then we had a bit of free time, so Mrs Tootlepedal and I popped into the Gallery of Modern Art for some culture and a Waterstones bookshop for a teacake and some coffee.  Mrs Tootlepedal brought a book on wild flowers and as a result, I hope to be able to be a bit more informative next spring when the wild flowers return.

The lady at the desk in the gallery of modern art told us that she had seen the choir gathering outside the door earlier in the morning and had assumed that we were going to have a group visit to the gallery so she had got out a pile of brochures for us. Then she said, “But you burst into song and it was wonderful.  I wish that I could hear that every day when I came to work.”  We were much touched.  She didn’t even mind having to put all the brochures away again,.

The journey back to Carlisle was smooth and as the scenery was bathed in sunshine, it was no hardship to look at it as it went by and the 90 miles passed quickly.

All in all, the weekend was a great success but as it was quite energetic, so this is going to be another brief post.  I apologise to all the authors of the brilliant posts whose offerings I have not read while I was away.  I will try to catch up tomorrow.

There was a great flock of flying pigeons in George Square, but trying to catch them in the air with a phone was tricky, so here they are at ground level.  (You can see some choir members in the background.)