Sight seeing with Miss T...15 9 5 (13) 25 1 23
There was a lively crowd of people staying at the
Bank Street hostel on the day in question the 26th August who in a manner of speaking
were all thrown together in the Common Dining cum Sitting Room on the back-side
of the building: a couple of girls from Oz and a third from New Zealand, a
newly arrived Frenchman who was to begin teaching French in one of the Colleges
in Glasgow, an Indian Physician there to attend a conference in the city, two
Hungarians male and female holidaying in Scotland after completing a job
picking fruit in UK where they told they were paid below-minimum wages, a
Polish lady who was looking to study further at the nearby University, an
Italian student Alvesi from Venice, a longer-term guest most conspicuous for
his cooking delicious Italian-looking dishes with mouth-watering smells filling
the small kitchen, an American male over to sight-see Europe and an Australian
male also on a longer-term stay working part-time at the hostel, plus of course
Miss T, a young lady from Japan...and myself of course an aging Anglo-Scan.
Thrown together then first by virtue of the small kitchen adjacent the Dining Room with its long table stretching along its length where after exchanging odd bits of chat in the kitchen we were further thrown together for more chat from the close proximity around the dining table, everyone apparently open to discussion or so it now seems because upon reflection I seem to be able to recall some chat with everyone present. And later in the evening with the American and the Pole the latest events unfolding in parts of the former Soviet Union ensured that the discussion continued most lively.
However it came about that Miss T and I decided to go sight-seeing together next day though just how this came about is not now so clear, but from maybe 9 30 am next morning the two of us were seen to leave together to visit Glasgow's Kelvin Grove Museum of Art. This to be followed by a visit to The Hunterian Museum which boasts a fine collection of artefacts from the 18th century, a personal collection of the distinguished Surgeon and Gynaecologist William Hunter who, in common with many of his contemporaries, amassed an extensive private collection of all manner of artefacts. In his case his family donated its contents to the Medical Faculty of Glasgow University following his death thus establishing a Museum which in the passage of time became a blueprint for many later UK museums.
I recall showing Miss T video clips of one or other of my two half Japanese grandsons playing piano at their Music College back home in the capital, and probably treated her to some chat about the odd business trip I made to Tokyo on the back of a visit my wife and I made to Okinawa for our son's wedding to his delightful Okinawan wife, thereby clearly establishing a basis for our acquaintance- or shall we call it a friendship..?
Throughout the day I took a good many pics which today help to fill in a few gaps in my recollections about the time-scale of these events though these of course tell little of that which came to pass by way of discussion: Miss T it transpired had been visiting UK to attend classes at a College of Art in Brighton and she confided that her best friend was one of her Grandmothers… She also expressed much surprise when during the day she got a telephone call from her mother which as a parent myself didn’t strike me as anything but natural for a 23 year old young lady away from home already several months and now sight-seeing Europe before her return..?
Today's pics from Glasgow's recently opened Museum of Transport: bottom pic showing bottom left-hand corner the famed Morris Minor 1000 which model sold over a million cars, one of which became one of my own early cars and the only car I ever had that didn't cost me anything because after driving her 2 years someone from a side street crashed into me and the Insurance Company paid me the value of the car equal to what I paid for her..!
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