IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Croftpark Avenue, GLASGOW, G44 5HS

Wheelie bins awaiting the council bin lorry.

View over Glasgow from Castlemilk.

When I first came to Glasgow I was told that it has the most green space per head of population of all UK cities. I don't know if that's true but there are 90+ parks and gardens. King's Park is one of them, offering a pleasant space for the surrounding residential areas of Simshill, Castlemilk, Croftfoot and indeed King's Park.

Residential street in the south of Glasgow.

A speed camera on Carmunnock Road, a busy route into/out of Glasgow.

Carmunnock Road passing King's Park.

The marquee and gazebos in the distance are just being taken down following a 'Wild in the City' event, run by the Council's Countryside Ranger Service.

This monumental sundial is fairly close to the similarly huge Aikenhead House in King's Park, Glasgow. It got transported here in the 1930s shortly after part of the original Aikenhead estate was gifted to the city by a developer. Presumably the developer had realised that such big profits would arise from the building of thousands of houses on the former estate's land that this grand gesture could be afforded. Whilst undoubtedly impressive, the sundial is also a bit silly. Four very unfeminine-looking bare-breasted creatures support an octagon, which in turn supports four bearded faces who share a silly tall hat. This is only the start of the silliness though. Each side of the octagon has its own sundial. (Sadly one or two of the gnomons - the metal bits that cast the shadow - are missing, and all the rest have been twisted out of shape by vandals.) At least one, probably two, and perhaps more of these sundials are superfluous however. The sun only rises due East and sets due West at the equinoxes. In the summer the sun rises in the NorthEast, and sets in the NorthWest, both of these positions becoming more Northerly as the summer solstice is approached. Somewhere online, a fairly official looking site says that at 56° North - which is roughly the latitude of Glasgow - the sun rises at 42° and sets at 318° on the summer solstice (North being 0°). I'm nowhere near clever enough to do the maths, but am certain that this means the time could be told even on the longest day without reference to the full eight sundials! The thinking must have been to do it because they could. Well, in the 1600s at least - as this apparently is something of a 'tribute' sundial to a famous one made back then. Fair enough I suppose.

Unknown brand black platform stileto shoes with an exceptionally high heel, abandoned on Carmunnock Road, near the roundabout at Croftfoot Road.