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Variously: Dawn over Glasgow; the Assater Pillie; bizarre camping within the ruined St Ninian’s Isle kirk; Stroh and Skynbow fiddles at the Violin Shop, Glasgow (we came away with a double bass and a cello); telly on the beach; the north boat, or one of them; Ullapool; sign of the Pillie-obsessed times; a tree.

…I took this just after daybreak during my last visit to Glasgow, a week ago. I’d just come out of my hotel (the Devoncove – cheap, cheerful and not very clean) on Sauchiehall Street, in my favourite part of the west end – where Kelvingrove Park interfaces with Finniston, along from Mother India. The camera…

Worst summer in 40 years, best October in 20. Or so a local fisherman told me yesterday in the newly refurbished Brae Garage, which is now a shop, off licence and general impersonation of the Tardis, complete with computerised flight deck. Brae is the nearest sizeable village to our humble hamlet, some 10 miles away…

Last Thursday Alan MacLeod of Mooney’s Wake and North star fame put on a multi-faceted event at Mooney’s for John Peel Night, along with dozens of other promoters throughout the country. I was due to spin a few discs as part of the DJ team, but at 5.30 pm Alan called to ask if there…

This is the world-famous tombolo, or double-sided beach, between St Ninian’s Isle and Bigton in the south mainland of Shetland. On Sunday, for the first time in my experience, the sea had broken through the spit of sand – combination of high tide and stormy weather – though it was still possible to cross to…

Ah, the glory of Shetlandic skip-diving! Who knows what you’ll find? Alas, the shelves I thought were painted wood turned out to be chipboard, but still, I found room to dump two outgrown, rusted-solid bikes, and the redundant Swedish Mulltoa electric biological composting toilet. Of which more another time. But what was Minnie doing there?…

Arrival: A well-deserved break, having reached Loch Lomond on a Sunday jaunt from Glasgow aboard a slightly-too-small bike. This is taken from the balcony at the Loch Lomond Shores centre, which is a pretty stupid name for a naggingly disappointing development. A Jenners store on the West of Scotland? Hmm…the steamer Maid of the Loch,…

Ah, wondrous Bowling. So many fantastic memories from the days when it was a shabby, rundown repository for mouldering old boats, many of them sheltering long-term residents. It’s slightly, but not entirely, gentrified these days. I used to be the only person, it seemed, who came here. Now? Well, now it’s packed with picnickers. Still…

Locked: Under the Erskine Bridge, on the Forth and Clyde Canal towpath. I half thought of cycling over the bridge (there is a cycle and pedestrian path) and then coming back to Glasgow via the Renfrew Ferry, but my ability to cope with heights is much diminished since I last did that run, some 21…

Whiteinch side, Renfrew Ferry, Sunday morning. I’m sipping instant coffee and eating nuts. This is the last of the many Clyde ferries that used, in the great industrial past, to shuttle workers back and forth. One of my favourite places in Greater Glasgow. If I hadn’t been hungover and on a health kick, I might…