It seems such a long time ago now but I took these photos on Easter Monday in Glasgow. It was quite early and I couldn’t believe how empty the place was. This is the west end of Glasgow, close to the University of Glasgow which was founded in 1451, it’s usually heaving with students, but of course they were all on holiday. This is our old stamping ground and it’s always nice to wander along and see if anything has changed, there’s a good Oxfam bookshop there too.

The photo above was taken from Byres Road, looking along University Avenue, you can see the oldest part of the uni, the Gothic building in the middle of the photo. You can see better photos of it here.

Above is a bit further along Byres Road, with a mixture of old and new buildings, the underground station, a Starbucks and a teeny old pub called The Curlers Rest.

At the top of Byres Road there’s an old police box, just like the Tardis, on the outside anyway. My mother said that in the bad old days the Glasgow police used to take men into police boxes to beat them up with no problems about witnesses. They were a tough breed, those Glesga polis. As you can see there was a book fair on, behind that wall is Glasgow’s Botanic Gardens and they often hold book fairs there, for once neither of us bought any books – no we couldn’t believe it either! I’m kicking myself for not taking any photos of the gardens, but on the other hand, it was the one place which was heaving with kids all having fun, and I don’t like to take photos with unknown kids in them.

The photo above was taken from exactly the same spot as the previous one, but it’s looking east along Great Western Road which is usually jam packed with cars. Obviously on Easter Monday it’s a slow start but after about an hour the place was almost back to normal.

And again the photo above is from the same spot, but looking along Great Western Road in the opposite direction. This area of Glasgow often pops up in books which are set in Glasgow, and I just thought that it might be interesting for people who can’t visit it easily to see what it looks like.