Silhouette sunset

It turns out that the present I had in mind for my brother's birthday isn't in stock anywhere.  At all.  So perhaps it's just as well I didn't traipse out in the gale force wind to the last bastion of hope, a shop in Portobello.  I also wasn't for traipsing all the way into town and out the other side for a market where a backup present might be located.  Instead, I drank tea and read about the Empire Exhibition that was held in Glasgow's Bellahouston Park in 1938.  I visited the park as part of a social ride I organised and led in 2011.  A few – quite a few, actually – buildings remain from the exhibition, although only one or two are still where they were originally.  The example that piqued my interest was the Palace of Engineering, which you can see in all its Streamline Moderne glory at Prestwick airport.

I ran out of super sticky duct tape mending the latest series of massive rips in my motorbike cover, so went out to get some more.  One day I will a) find the right thread for the sewing machine so it doesn't snap mid-run, b) buy a job lot of the fabric Alpkit uses for its bags, and c) make my own cover.  A brief nip to the supermarket for bread, and then home via the farmer's field for photos, and then out again to collect a guitar stand that a music teacher was giving away.  It was absolutely freezing in the wind, and it's still blowing like mad this evening.