Boats on the Clyde

This is , I think, a Type 45 Guided Missile Destroyer of the Royal Navy which was moored at the mouth of the Gareloch this morning as I crossed the Clyde. The grey shape was hard to get in focus , not least because it seemed to merge into the grey water and the grey landscape, lightened by last night's snow.

But I have titled the blip 'Boats on the Clyde " because of something else that happened today. After a great visit to the Entrepreneurial Spark project in Dundonald, where I met not only some of the ambitious and determined chiclets but also some of the Kilmarnock College students helping them, I went on to see the George Wylie exhibition at the Mitchell Library in Glasgow. It is fantastic and a "must visit" for the festive season ( George was just so prolific, so,imaginative and so direct) but the best part was being helped to make a wee paper boat by Primary School pupil Vicky from Gourock, a master paper boat builder in the George Wylie tradition.
At the end she gave me one of her beautiful very small boats in exchange for my rather badly made larger one which will, however, be part of the flotilla to be set adrift in the Clyde in Hogmanay which would have been George's 91st birthday .

I think most of us would believe that boats such as Vicky's should loom larger in the world we want to see than the boat on the Clyde I photographed this morning. George certainly would have.

I made two other visits today as well -to Langside College where I had a range of discussions including a fascinating one with student reps and to Knightswood Secondary which houses the Scottish Dance Centre of Excellence and where the performance by dance and musical theatre students was inspirational.

A day of positive educational experiences in other words and thanks to everyone who let me see them.