See it, blog it

I fairly recently started reading the my life in knitwear blog. It's an interesting read but I was particularly taken with the See It, Blog It challenge, which Rachel, the blogger, created in the "hope that it will inspire seasoned, new and occasional bloggers (myself included) to get out and See It, Blog It".  It's exactly the kind of kick up the blogging bum (and photography bum for that matter) that I like.

So October was my first attempt at a See It, Blog It challenge - and I completely failed to do the actual 'blog it' bit. *sigh* Such a numpty.  Anyway, here's what the October challenge was -  to go somewhere you frequently go or pass but don't pay usually attention to, and look at it from a different angle.  Mine was unintentional. There was a break-in at the usual venue for my daughter's dance classes (a Masonic lodge of all things, as I think I've mentioned before), and it was still a crime scene so her dance teacher had to find a new venue for that day's classes sharpish. She managed to hire the church hall down the road. I drive past that church at least six times a week and although I'd admired a tree in its garden (grounds?), that was it.

What I didn't get a decent picture of was the view back out onto the road I drive up and down so often. I frequently think that a new view of a familiar scene can be fascinating in a Through the Looking Glass sort of way. It gets my imagination going anyway.  The tree I've admired, in spring especially, is behind a fairly high stone wall so I had no idea what else was in the garden. In fact it's a tranquil sort of place, more grass than I expected with mature trees. It's quiet.  The road outside is hardly a busy road so you'd expect that but there's a nice sense of quiet you get in places with high walls and trees. Some places. Perhaps not prisons.

I looked up. It's not an old church but it's got solidity, and nice windows I thought. I was taken with the different sized panes and wondered if there was more recent Mackintosh-ish influence there. They do like their rectangles in Glasgow :-D.

Then I looked over my shoulder and there was this plaque on the wall. I just found it very endearing - 'to the Glory of God.. a rhododendron'.  Nothing too over the top, just a rhododendron. And the Moderator leaning on a spade. And the fact that there's a plaque commemorating it.

It reminded me of this little sign that I found last year.

It's by the side of a busy road. Although there is pavement there, hardly anybody ever walks along it because it's not a residential area, it's near an edge-of-town retail park, so probably hardly anybody ever notices it. You certainly wouldn't spot it from a car. It's not old and despite its resemblance to a tombstone it's (again) a commemorative thing, this time commemorating when that road was opened.  It says:

Glasgow 8 miles 

Brussels 641 miles

Opened by

Ken Collins, MEP

Member of 

the European Parliament

for Strathclyde East

on

Friday 23rd August 1991

I think it says Friday. Can't see for the grass. 

What fascinates me about this is that somebody commissioned this monument, somebody took some trouble over the wording, somebody carved it.  Presumably on the day there was an appreciative crowd for the grand opening (I didn't live here then). I wonder how many people know it's there?

Back to the church and I'll end with a gatepost, just because it looks so cheery. I'm not sure this was the church gatepost actually. It might have been further up the road. I'll have to check next time I go past.