Cutty Sark and Midland

As often happens when a return flight home is in the afternoon, we weren’t quite sure how to spend our last half day in London. We didn’t want to stray too far, especially as EasyJet had warned us that there could be significant delays at security because of staff shortages. James came up with a great idea. We went to visit the old tea clipper “Cutty Sark” at Greenwich. This was not too far to travel from Canning Town and neither of us have visited it before. She is a lovely old ship, once the fastest tea clipper in the world. As can be surmised by being named after the prettiest witch in Tam O’Shanter, the Cutty Sark has Scottish connections; she was built in Dumbarton for the Willis shipping line whose founder hailed from Berwickshire. 

She is beautifully maintained by a team of dedicated volunteers, one of whom was was chatting to us about the rudder and the sails, and mentioned to us that he had just noticed for the first time that the telescope in the Captain’s cabin is dedicated the the cross-channel swimmer Captain Matthew Webb. 

After coffee and cake in the excellent tearoom downstairs under the ship’s keel, it was time to retrieve our luggage from the hotel and make our way to Gatwick Airport. I’m glad to say that there were no delays at security, although news reports have informed us that they can be very bad at busy times. However the plane was an hour late in taking off which was a bit frustrating. 

Home we flew, but our day was not over yet! On landing at Glasgow, we walked to the car and James dropped me off at the O2 in Eglinton Street so that I could get into the queue for the much delayed (by the birth of one of the band’s children but mainly by Covid) Midland concert. I secured great seats in the balcony and was soon joined by Gerry and Christine (Cat and Ally were unable to attend because after the four postponements, they are of course now living in London!) and James. It was a really joyful concert; I loved the music and the band seemed genuinely happy to be in Glasgow at last. We waved to Heather and Ewan who were downstairs also enjoying themselves mightily. It was a wonderful evening but oh boy what a long day! I was absolutely exhausted by the time we got home.