Alone and yet together

It wasn't raining and I needed something to blip, so I took myself out for the day and went bandstand hunting.  It was pretty cold and on the motorbike I was wearing my winter gloves with the heated grips turned up to three-quarters.

The extra was actually my main objective, and is the 1902 bandstand in George Allan Park in Strathaven.  Although there are no maker's marks or insignia, I think it was made by the legendary Saracen Foundry.  It has seen several different colour schemes over the years, everything from sage green to silver, to yellow, red, black, blue and bright green, all told through the peeling layers.  The park itself is very lovely.  It has a good sized cafe where I enjoyed coffee and cake, there's a play park for adults, more play areas for children, a boating pond, and there is a miniature railway with actual steam locomotives fired by miniature lumps of coal and which pull miniature ride-on carriages.  The railway has a turntable and a traverser and everything.

I was plotting a route home on Google, which 'helpfully' still had my Lion Foundry map layer switched on, and I realised Kilsyth wasn't all that far to the north.  Well, 45 minutes or an hour north.  And the day was young so why not?  And here in Burngreen Park is another of the famous foundry's bandstands.  It was installed in 1910 and was refurbished in 2010, repainted in its original colours of green and silver.  Thrillingly (if you're into this stuff) it's a model no. 37, the very same as the Lewisvale Park bandstand in Musselburgh that I visited not too long ago.  Also in the park, beyond the bandstand, is the drinking fountain which was also cast by the Lion Foundry.  I will need to do more research to find out if there are any other no. 37s still around.

I played briefly with a very enthusiastic and friendly collie while I ate my lunch in the sunshine, for it was warming up enough for summer gloves.  I rode homewards against some spectacularly strange navigation decisions from my GPS that seemed desperate to avoid the M9 and instead had me taking the shunpike route through Camelon and Grangemouth and jolly nearly Bo'ness.  I thought about visiting the Falkirk Wheel and later the Kelpies but I've been before so will save them for another day.  In the end I ignored my GPS and followed the road signs, and Fidra and I hared down the motorway, to make it a nice round 135 miles.

I bumped into my friend AlanR in the supermarket later on and it was nice to catch up for a few minutes.  Normally we might only manage a wave to each other, like two passing ships when our commutes intersect.