Tartan

Walked the rain clean streets up to Queen St station around 10.  Instead of dodging party girls this morning it was the runners for the Glasgow Run for Life.  People were running in family and friendship groups and at very variable speeds, one felt it was a run motivated by love.   Outside the station a choir of female voices, thirty or forty strong encouraged the runners, including a man in a kilt and a rainbow wig pushing a buggy with a photo in it, playing up to the crowd.  

Train through the misty morning to Dundee where I met up with C&S and Mum to see the Tartan exhibition at the V&A.  It was colder there, with a brisk wind.  The exhibition was terrific.  It was both a history of tartan and a portrait of its cultural meaning from clans, to Queen Victoria to Vivienne Westwood.   They also showed outfits by other fashion designers and a lot of objects under the banner ‘The People’s Tartan’ were more generic tartan-adorned items such as Bay City Rollers trousers and a ‘Nessie doorstop.  

Mum enjoyed finding the pattern for the Scott tartan, her maiden name.  

Lunch in the gallery restaurant overlooking the Tay and then drove over to see cousin Carolyn and daughter Penelope who live just outside Dundee.  

Train back from Perth, picked up supper from M&S at the station and mastered the microwave for some soup.   Watched a bit of live TV and then read, finishing my book, Black Butterflies, before bedtime.  It’s the story of the siege of Sarajevo told from the point of view of a woman artist.  It started brilliantly but slightly petered out at the end.  It’s nominated for the Women’s Prize and for a first novel it was impressive.  Currently have read 3 out of 6 so am moving on to the other long one, The Marriage Portrait, but suspect Demon Copperhead is the one to beat still.