Still very much alive ...

I don't know that the above title could be said to refer to me, but I was struck today by how alive my home city is still, if you go there on a Saturday. It's years since I've done that - midday on a Wednesday is a very different place, but the sense that city centres are turning into ghost towns certainly didn't apply today, and Glasgow was buzzing.

We didn't go for the whole day: I had time to make bread and to pop down to the pharmacist to get them to order more eye drops for me - I'll still have to get a prescription to them on Monday, when I run out. But we got away about midday, took an age crawling between the traffic lights in Greenock, whizzed up the motorway as far as the airport, and found the road into the city centre suddenly a maze of closed off streets and road works. God knows what's happening; they appear to be tearing down large parts of the centre. We parked in the Buchanan Galleries car park - had to go all the way up to the 7th floor to find a space - and emerged, eventually, into Buchanan Street, every inch of which was thick with people, parcels and a loud and rather retro band giving it laldy. Bedlam, in fact. We began to despair of finding anywhere to eat - it was almost 3pm by now - but Di Maggio's cheerful receptionist told us to join the queue and within five minutes we were at a table for two in the depths of the restuarant. Another five minutes brought us wine, and then pasta ...

The reason for this so far pointless trip was a teatime jazz concert at the Conservatoire at which granddaughter Catriona was playing, having been there all day at her normal classes. We met her parents in a shop I'd never heard of, pottered round for an hour in Lush and elsewhere, then made our way to the venue. This occasion saw Catriona the only girl in the smaller, senior group, and though she was clearly soooo tired she played beautifully and introduced one number with greater clarity and composure than any of the others. I was, however, reminded of an essay she wrote a year ago about women in jazz ...

And then we had a few precious minutes together while we found the way into the car park, the usual entrance through the shopping mall being closed for the night, and said our goodbyes on the fifth floor. I think they were home before us ...

The collage is meant to give an impression of the vibrant life of the day (including my pasta!) compared with the last photo, the almost-empty Floor 7 of the car park with only three white cars in it at 7pm. The stall supporting Palestine, by the way, has been there for longer than I can remember, and the reason there are no photos of the gig is that we weren't allowed to take any.

And now it's past midnight, and we have church tomorrow ...