Wednesday 16 July
The Queen’s Baton relay had passed through Port Glasgow on Monday but Moira had a tummy upset and stayed in. I was going to go but when it began to rain I changed my mind. Today the relay had moved to Giffnock where Suzanne and Gavin live. There were going to walk to where the cavalcade was to pass with Hollie, we decided to join them.
We were planning to take the motorhome to the storage farm at Burnhouse and this wasn’t very far from Giffnock. We dropped the ‘van off there and Moira who had been following in the car drove us to Giffnock. After lunch we all walked the short distance to the town centre. The weather wasn’t looking very promising so we were prepared with waterproofs and Gavin had his golfing umbrella.
There certainly weren’t the crowds we experienced viewing the Tour de France; there were a few people waiting but there wasn’t any problem picking a spot on the edge of the road. We were opposite the Sainsbury supermarket and a woman came out with a tray of snacks which she started to hand out to the people waiting. I thought it was going to be something exciting and tasty; it turned out to be little squares of bread and butter. Gavin said they probably used the bread that was at its sell-by date. Like the ‘Tour’ there were lots of false alarms with police cars and motorcycles with flashing blue lights coming along well in advance. Eventually the ‘relay’ did appear, there were a lot of runners in blue t-shirts and a woman carrying the baton. I got a video and they were gone.
We then took a short cut through the grounds of St Ninian’s school that Gavin went to and hopefully Hollie will attend to the next change over point of the baton. It was only a short distance and the baton and cavalcade were going a long way round. We met Gavin’s brother Brian, his wife Clare and family there. It was a 10 minute wait with a guy on stilts and the mascot of the games, ‘Clyde’, entertaining the crowd. I got another video when the baton arrived, it was a man that now had it, and they must have change after Giffnock. There was now a photo-shoot with a lot of people in fancy dress (I don’t know why). I managed to get in among the pro-photographers and tried to get Moira to move into the group of people in costume with the baton holder but she was reluctant. I took a selfie of me in front of the group instead.and discovered that she had sneaked in at the side. We moved round the corner to where the rest of the family were waiting and saw the baton leave on its way to Rouken Glen, it was another video to be taken.
The rain that had been threatening all day suddenly arrived as we start back to the house. It poured down and we made the mistake not sheltering as it went off after 10 minutes and the blue sky appeared. But we got soaked even with our waterproofs and decided when we got to the house to immediately head for Port Glasgow and get into some dry clothes. We thought that we might have got held up with traffic and the baton cavalcade when we drove past Rouken Glen Park but it was clear and the traffic moving freely. Definitely not the ‘Tour de France’. By the time we reached Langbank the sky was blue and the sun lighting up the river and the Argyll hills, it was a beautiful view.
BATON PHOTO ALBUM
Below three videos of the event, control + click to view.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7tihaN4tMw