Better, because I don't live in the country. I actually live in Cessnock which if it isn't in the city centre is not too far off it. Which makes things all the more remarkable really. Because, with bike + train (not forgetting Glasgow's extensive rail network), I can without too much problem get into open country within ten or fifteen minutes from where I am. Amazing!
This morning, I took the little back-line train from Dumbreck to Paisley Canal whereupon I cycled up to the Glennifer Braes. The train took 13 minutes, and the cycle up took about the same again. Within half an hour, in other words, I was in heaven: not only had I begun to harvest those precious endorphins released by that uphill cycle, but now I was facing an abyssal amount of space overlooking the strath.
At this moment, which actually exists outside of time, there is the sublime and the divine.... Now, if you lived in the country, you wouldn't have this 'getting into the country', and I often think that this getting there is half the battle (against your manufactured self). Indeed, it was Hugh McDonald (who has a monument up here in the Glennifer Braes somewhere and who lived in Paisley for a bit) who wrote in his Rambles Round Glasgow in the 1850s that those who already live in the country are apt to become too familiar with it, and thus destroy any sense of vitality. Not so for someone coming from the city.
As the German mystic/cobbler Jakob Boehme once wrote, you need to proceed through hell in order to reach heaven.
Looking across Lapwing loch to Seargentlaw and the back of Paisley Golf Course, Glennifer Braes.
The great alley of beech trees up behind Johnstone...
The burnt-out car park up behind Howwood..... looking across to Nether Broadfield. I don't know what happens here when the sun goes down, but during the daytime it is a place of absolute serenity.
In spite of the main road, Howwood still retains a modicum of charm....
Howwood, with the outlook tower (Kenmuir Temple) in the centre distance.
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