Riverside Museum

Click image for more ...

The Transportation Museum (aka the Riverside Museum) is on the north bank of the Clyde River here in Glasgow. It's not far from our AirBnB in the West End; we take an Uber over on Saturday and spend several hours visiting the galleries. Like most museums and galleries run the by city, entry is free! Although you are encouraged to make a donation.

This area along the Clyde would have been the docklands — a port and shipbuilding center. All of that is gone; replaced with modern structures like this museum.

There's quite a bit of transportation history crammed into this museum. There's a steam engine (a big steam engine!), trams and buses, old cars and motorcycles, even horse drawn carriages. Glasgow, and the shipyards along the Clyde (long gone), made this an important port for immigration out to places like Canada, Australia, and the rest of the commonwealth. The Queen Mary (1933) was an important steam ship launched from here.

There's a lovely tall ship moored here, the Glennlee, There are some pictures at the end of the album taken from the Clyde Distillery (Scotch Wiskey) which is only a little ways up (east) the river.

There's a couple of interesting tram stories. One, there was a time when women started to work the trams (because the men were away to war). Oddly, they handled that fine. Two, there's the story about the spread of TB through spitting. Life was tough, spitting made it tougher. Many died.

There's a nice restaurant here but it's pretty busy; we have a late lunch. I have a "Haggis Sandwich". Haggis is that Scottish treat of oatmeal, offal and spices boiled in a sheep's stomach. The sandwich is an unusual way to serve it. Usually it's served as Haggis & Neeps (turnips).

Berlin

Click image for more ...

Thursday, June 5 we're off from Dresden to the Berlin Airport where we'll stay overnight and fly out the next day for Glasgow. Chris, our No. 1 son, has a meeting in Berlin and has kindly agreed to drive us. It's about a 2hr drive on the A13. We had arranged a bus service, that would go directly to the airport, but it's far nicer to be chauffeured. It's also an opportunity to spend more time with Chris.

Chris has a Volkswagen electric car; a company car. It's modern, new, fast and a comfortable ride on the motorway to Berlin. Chris demonstrates how fast the car will cruise on roads where there is no speed limit. I recall riding with Martin around Frankfurt/Nierstein and him demonstrating the same. 

We arrive at the airport around noon, Chris heads off to his meeting and we drop our luggage at the IntercityHotel Berlin Airport. It's too early to check in but they stow our bags awa. Kate persuades me that we ought to take the train into the city center and see some of the sights.

Kate has been to Berlin several times over the years to GENACIS meetings. I had always refused to go — work and winter travel got in the way. She has fond memories of the city and thinks I ought to see some of it while we're here. There's also a scheduled KBS in 2027 so we might be back.

We find our way to the underground train station (Flughafen BER) and struggle with the ticketing machine. We get some help from some UK travellers and we all have a chuckle, after getting our tickets, to discover that there's an option on the screen to set the language! And of course nobody looks at our tickets getting on, off or during the 20-30 minute ride there and back. I guess it's really just an honor system.

At the Berlin Central Station (Berlin Hauptbahnhof) we find a cafe on the square (Washington Platz) for Kate to hunker down and wait for me as I explore the city with the Brandenberg Gates as my destination. Around the train station, and across the river, there's lots of very modern archictecture with the occasional bit that survived the war and/or has been rebuilt after the war. There's also quite a bit of green space and many government buildings.

It's a reasonable walk I have planned; about 20 minutes or so each way. I pass by Capitol Beach on the Spree River where beach chairs line the water and folks soak up the sun (there's no beach proper); there are largeish boats cruising the river; the Reichstag Building (Reichstagsgebäude, the German Parliament) is an impressive older turn of the century building (where the Nazis used the 1933 Reichstag Fire to stage their coup); and likewise the Brandenberg Gates is also a turn of the century structure.

Nearby is a monument to the Jews killed by the Nazis in WWII. It's a park of about a city blook that looks like a unadorned graveyard of tightly packed simple bare mausoleums. Quite impressive. On the way wandering back I bump into a Memorial to the Sinti and Roma Victims of National Socialism. That's in the Tiergarten across from the Brandenburg gates. These gardens are quite wooded with quiet lanes to wander. I bump into a statue to Goethe (1749–1832 what do I know about German literature) and another of a lioness that has been killed, while the male lion stands over her protecting her body and baby cubs wrapped around her.

Back at the airport, we get checked into our hotel and have a dinner with Chris before he heads back to Dresden. We fly out to Glasgow tomorrow.

It was a real treat to visit Chris, Amy and their children in Dresden. We hope to see them again, they are kind generous family for us.

Dresden

Click image for more ...

We did a bit of jaunt around England and Germany before Kate's KBS conference in Glasgow, Scotland.

After our visit with Martin and Tina in Oppenheim we took a direct train from Frankfurt to Dresden, in the former East Germany, where our No. 1 son Chris (Martin's son), his wife Amy, and their three kids (Charlotte, Sebastian and Emily) live. Chris picked us up at the train station (he also drove us to Berlin airport at the end of our visit). We stayed in a nearby hotel.

On the first night we had a BBQ outdoors at their home which looks over nearby vineyards on the hillside above them. This was also Charlotte's 8th birthday. We had last seen her when she was just a newborn in Nottingham (see notes on Sheffield, 2017). The children were a little shy but we soon made friends. Sebastian reminds us so much of the impish but fun child Chris was when we first met all those years ago in Nierstein, 1994.

On the Wednesday Chris and Amy took us into Dresden to see the Neumarket town square which has been restored. The kids were off to a nearby school. You may know that Dresden was fire-bombed (February 1945) during WWII; a terrible act of war on a civilian population that today would/should count as a war crime. The horror of it all is memorialized in Kurt Vonnegut's book Slaughterhouse-Five, or, The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death (1969). I recall reading the book many years ago.

When East and West Germany were reunited (1989-90) a lot of money from the west was used to restore Dresden to it's past and current glory. The Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady), an iconic Lutheran church in the Neumarkt square, is famously restored -- it was an international effort (1994-2005). It had been completely destroyed in the fire-bombing of 1945, left as a pile of rubble and a memorial to war (and evil of the west) during the communist years. You can see the stained old stones against the new. These days it's a memorial to the reconciliation of the two warring sides.

We shared an Italian lunch on the Neumarkt square and tromped around a bit. The square is huge and there's lots to see. There's a grand opera house, lots of statuary and fine buildings. Were we younger we would have enjoyed wandering around this part of the city. It's obvious that it was an important and rich powerhouse before the wars. It's pedestrian friendly with lots to see including a river, the Elbe, running through it.

Kate wrote a note to Chris and Amy describing our long standing relationship:

"I'm just going through our pictures from Germany and Glasgow and looking at some of the pictures of our visit with your family and it came into my mind — how did we get so lucky to have Christopher for a friend? And then through you, we get to spend time with Amy and your wonderful children. The pictures reminded me what a lovely time we had with you and how much fun your kids were (they seemed to really fancy Reg)."

We hope to see our Dresden family again on this, or that, side of the big pond while we still can.

Ps. the lovely photo of Kate with the Frauenkirche above was taken by Amy. 

Oppenheim

Click image for more ...

We visited for a few days with our chum Martin and his partner Tina in Oppenheim, Germany. Martin has been a close friend since grad school at Western back in 1977/78 — we were both doing graduate work in Philosophy (Martin finished his PhD in Germany, I never finished mine). We've kept in touch over these many years and visit when ever we can. We are quite close with much of his family, especially his mom and Christopher (who we call our No. 1 son). 

We flew out of Heathrow on Saturday morning after a brief visit with Martin's mom (our Mom²) in Woking and our nephew's family in Ealing. Martin picked us up at the Frankfurt airport on Saturday and, at the end of the trip, dropped us off at the Frankfurt train station on Tuesday where we headed off to see Chris and Amy in Dresden. Neither of these trips into Frankfurt are non-trivial; it's over half an hour each way.

Oppenheim is a small town on a bend of the Rhine, not too far from Frankfurt which is a very large city on the other side of the river. Martin and Tina have an historic restored home in the old part of town. The area here and along the Rhine has many, many wineries — mostly Riesling and far better than anything we get at our LCBO. Their home is an old building with thick stone walls that has been lovingly restored and modernized. They are walking distance to the town center/city hall (Rathaus in German) where we met with some of their friends on Sunday for lunch. Their home has a ground floor self-contained apartment that, in the past, they have rented out as an AirBnB.

Martin and Tina are both retired; Tina only recently. In the interim between this and our last visit they had lived in Munich for several years (for Tina's work) and had rented out this home. They have returned only recently; it's not clear if they'll return to short term renting of the ground floor suite where we are staying.

Their home is on a oddly shaped large lot with a huge back garden with a big lawn, cherry tree and pool that they had installed. I recall visiting when the pool was installed. Like many homes around the town this has a couple of underground wine cellars. The really odd thing about these is they extend under the properties next door! Martin tells me that yes, the property above the cellar is the neighbors but the cellars underneath are theirs. Odd indeed.

The last times we have been to Oppenheim would have been in 2014 and 2016 while on KBS trips. Both times we stayed at their home and explored some of the wineries. This year we're not as mobile so stayed close to their home. Martin and Tina kindly kept us fed and entertained. We spent many a fine evening eating, drinking and chatting in their garden. Tina went out of her way to prepare some great dishes for us. And Martin had laid in a goodly supply of Huff Wines from Nierstein (just down the river) and we worked our diligently way through them.

There's a big cathedral in Oppenheim, the Katharinenkirche, that dominates town centre and the skyline. I did a walk out of the town into the vineyards above to take a few pictures. It's June so the fruit on the vines is just developing. I caught a glimpse of a deer resting in between the vine rows.

Like much of Europe Oppenheim is a pedestrian centric town (interesting to walk about the various lanes) but not particularly pedestrian friendly if you have any mobility issues. Tina, aware of Kate's problems, was able to borrow a wheel chair so she could see some of the city. I did a lot of traipsing about on my own. There were lots of these low little doors leading to underground wine cellars. I understand there are some interesting events staged underground. I don't think the cellars are used as much any more.

Another interesting thing was to see the stations of the cross throughout the town. At at least one corner there was a Jewish low-relief similar artwork in the wall. And, on the sidewalk, small brass plaques to mark the place where Jews had lived but were taken away and lost to the WWII Holocaust. Compare with the memorial near the Brandenburg Gates that I visited a few days later.

On Monday Martin and Tina took us on a drive out of town, up and over the hills to the east, to Landgasthof Engel in Schwabenheim. Another lovely old town, an historic old building with a courtyard that would have worked nicely had it not started to rain. The basement washroom had a toilet seat with an angle painting and the admonition, "Sei ein Engel, und setz Dich" (Be an angel, and sit down).

Martin and Tina were kind hosts.  We enjoyed our visit with them and hope to see them, mom and Chris again on one side or the other of that big pond that separates us.

Mom and Woking

Click image for more ...

On Friday, May 30, we visit Mom² in nearby Woking for lunch and an afternoon visit. Jean is the mother of our friend Martin whom I met in grad school at Western (1977-78), but I always call her Mom. Not to disparage my mom, it's just that we have a very long and close relationship. I'd still rather call her Mom than Jean or Mrs Fry. 

Back in 1979 I visited with Martin on a month long biking trip in England. I stayed in Woking with him and his parents — that's when I first met Mom. Martin had taken his MA (Phil), returned to the UK/EU, and had invited me to visit (that's before Kate, see this blog entry). Martin and I have maintained a relationship ever since. 

We will be seeing Martin and Tina in Oppenheim and Martin's son Chris and his family in Dresden later on this trip. We fly out to Germany tomorrow, Saturday.

Any time we fly through Heathrow we try to visit Mom — she's 98 and still going strong but no one lasts forever. We have offered to take her out for lunch; however, the main objective is to have a visit, catch up and have a good chat. Actually she had offered to have us stay with her instead of at the Heathrow airport hotel!

An interesting aside:

We decided to rent a car for the day rather than Uber. There's an Alamo rental a short walk away from our hotel and, to get there, I cross the road from the hotel and wander through the parking lot of the Compass Centre where I take a picture of an interesting statue of Hercules holding the world on his shoulders (you can find the picture here on the Wikipedia page). A few minutes later, as I continue across the lot, I'm approached by an attendant. "What are you doing here?" I explain what I'm doing, where I'm staying and where I'm going. Not good enough, he calls in someone from security. Apparently I'm not supposed to be in this parking lot (I hadn't crossed any barriers or signs to forbid my entry). And according to these two I'm not supposed to be taking any pictures from within although they admit they can't stop me from taking pictures from outside. They insist that I delete the picture I had taken before I can proceed and even then they walk me off the lot. You've got to be kidding me!  WTF was that for?

The drive to Woking is nerve wracking. I wish we had taken an Uber — damn the cost! Actually although the car rental was fairly expensive I suspect Uber would have been even more .. but way less stressful. It's quite crowded around this part of the city and the route to Woking involves many twists, turns and lane changes through many crowded urban settings. Kate and Google Maps are helpful but this isn't any fun. However, we do make it safely to Woking and stop at a large downtown mall near Mum's place where we buy her some flowers and chocolates. She's quite appreciative and glad to see us. We settle right in.

Mum has laid out a lunch with some wine for us. No, we're not going out. We had jokingly offered to take her out for pizza — we hear Andrew likes thr Pizza Express in Woking and it's not too far away (cf. Epstein scandal). We enjoy our lunch together and have a long chat. There's a lovely attached sun room that looks over the garden. Hanging in the window is a crystal prism we gave her years ago.

Mom is still driving her car and does much better at navigating these narrow twisted routes than we! She's still in this her home of so many years (probably 65 or more). She's navigating the stairs to her bedroom on the second floor and tells us that's one of the reasons she's doing so well. It's the exercise of getting up and down those stairs. Whatever it is, she's in remarkably good health and seems as quick witted and smart as ever. Although she does tell us the story of a complicated telephone scam she recently fell for. To her defense, it was an elaborate and convincing scam.

There are some pictures in the album of the house from the large garden out back. She has help to take care of cutting the lawn, trimming the hedges, tending the garden and so on. It costs but Chuck has left her in good shape. Her one son Duncan lives reasonably nearby in London and is quite supportive. Martin is not so close at hand in Germany but they keep in touch and do what they can.

In sum, she's pretty amazing. We tell her we'll be back for her 100th birthday.

Ps. Confessions from the "Comma Queen" (Kate), my editor. She likes to write "mum" I like to write "mom". Google AI tells me:

"Mom" and "mum" are informal terms for mother, largely distinguished by region: "mom" is primarily used in the United States and Canada, while "mum" is standard in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. Both are correct variations derived from "mamma," with "mum" often considered the older, more traditional spelling in British English. 

I'll leave it as written. 

Ealing

Click image for more ...

Our overnight flight to Heathrow has us at our hotel late Thursday morning. Delays in Toronto had us abandon the original flight that would have had us arriving at 6:30 in the morning — we took the last overnight flight out that had seats for us in business class. That worked well. We get an early check in at the Hyatt Place London Heathrow Airport on Bath Road (we stay here at both ends of our trip), get settled in, catch a quick nap, get cleaned up and take an Uber into Ealing to see our nephew Darren, his wife Gail and their two children Chloe (8yrs) and Arthur (5yrs).

We are told Ealing is nearby. While it is in the west end of London towards the airport it's surprisingly far from the airport. The Uber takes about half an hour each way. This has us puzzling about tomorrow's visit to Woking; a rental car might work better.

Darren and Gail have been in London for 10 years or so. Both of their children were born here. Darren has an Irish passport, through his maternal grandfather, which made emigrating possible. Both are business graduates and working, I think, in the marketing side of things. Gail tells us about travelling on public transit (they're near the several Ealing Tube stations) to her work only to meet via Zoom with colleagues in Europe. During covid people worked from home, why not now? Darren seems to do more traveling for his job. They don't have a car; having one in the city would be a burden. Instead they walk, ride their bikes, and take the public transit (like the tube). They like living there in London, I suspect they'll be there for many more years.

They live in a rented row house. It has a lovely big back garden where they can grow things and the kids can safely play. They have some interesting toys, a houseful really, some are made at the daycare. Today the kids and I play with a "whirlygig" made with string and a bit of bone. I recall playing with one made with string and a button when I was a kid. Arthur and I are able to get it spinning; he'll get the hang of it in time. Another toy is a ring on a string attached to a stick; the aim is to you catch the ring on the stick. The kids have tried, without much luck, but Gail proudly did it — twice!

Nearby is St Mary's Church, Ealing. It's just a stone's throw away, a short walk, and an important community center. Darren and Gail are involved with the church as are the kids. Chloe did a reading at a recent service. We have a collage of her jumping in the old covered gate/entry to the church grounds.

Beside the church is the neighborhood pub, The Rose and Crown, where we have our dinner together. We knew about the pub from pictures Bridget had shared and were keen to go. There is an old song we love: The Old Rose and Crown (circa 1980), by Ian Robb of the Friends of Fiddlers Green. The song laments the changes that have happened to commercialize and destroy the comfort of neighborhood pubs. This is still a very nice neighborhood pub with good food, beers on tap, friends who gather, a garden space out back and events.

I enjoy "bangers and mash" dinner. That's authentic! 

Case Study - MWQ Transport

Click image for more ...

In 1969, when I would have been 17 years old and in grade 11 at the old OSCVI school in Owen Sound, I took a course on "Business Organization" with a Mr. DeBoer. Part of the requirements for the course was to do a case study of some business. I chose to do it on my father's business — Maurice Quinton & Sons Transport — which operated out of our home in the village of Walter's Falls in Grey County, Ontario. I recall that I did very well on this assignment, mostly because I followed the guide we were given — organize it this way, cover these issues, include this material, etc.

My father squirreled this report away and it came into my hands as part of his estate and papers when he passed away (1914-2012). Yesterday Kate discovered the single copy of the report while cleaning up her files. Today I've scanned the document as a series of pictures; they are a somewhat hard to read as the paper has yellowed and the ink has faded. But here they are, warts an all (many spelling mistakes), with Mr. DeBoer's comments in red. Someday I hope to restore the text and will share that. For now, the images will have to do.

I have written before on dad's company, e.g., see blog entry "Maurice Quinton & Sons Transport" (2021). If you dig around my blog you'll find lots more about my family.