Today was an easy day for us. Another day of not getting out the door until around 11:30.  First task of the day was to get to the bank and exchange our Old Pounds left over from our 2011 trip to Scotland for new ones.  Oh I forgot to share the story about how we discovered we needed to update those pounds.

On our first adventure in Scotland during this 2024 trip (our walking tour of musical history in Glasgow) we ended our tour at the Scotia Pub, which if you have been reading along you are already familiar with.

Anyway, we were all crammed into the back of the bar and were invited to go up and buy ourselves a drink and stay as long as we liked.   Paul settled in chatting with follow tour takers and I go up to get a half pint of beer.  My turn in the queue finally comes up, they pour me my half pint, and I hand them my 10 pound note. Bartender takes the note, looks at it just as he is about to put it into the till, wiggles it in his fingers and says, I can’t take this its old money, you’ll have to exchange it at the bank.

Then he says you’re trying to swindle me with that! The next thing I know, everyone at the bar and joins in and start calling me “swindler!”.  Of course, I turned 20 shades of red and laughed along with everyone, but still I was super embarrassed with everyone looking at me.  All the while, Paul is in the back chatting away never hearing all this going on.  

So now we understand there is new paper currency, but again it’s not so easy as one might think to get it exchanged to new money.

Last night we passed a Bank of Scotland. We peered into the large glass doorway, and were excited to see they had teller stations. We thought great only a few blocks away from us we can get this taken care of right away. 

You can click on me for full size view.

So off we go on our first stop of the day.  We arrive to the bank, go inside this huge, old cavern of a building, a man quickly walks up to us asking how he could help.  We say we have this old money to exchange, he’s says we don’t do that.  We are only the office, we don’t do money.  What???! 

So after a few seconds looking at our confused faces he tells us there’s a money exchange place not far away, so off we went to the money exchange conveniently located across from the city’s central station. 

There it was explained, very apologetically, that a surcharge would have to apply for the exchange, but maybe out of pity for the old tourist out a few pounds, they also checked our little bag of coins to be sure they were all good. Thirty new pounds richer we headed off to explore more of the city.

Also today we discovered that Jacqui McShee’s Pentangle was added to the line up for the Tue, Jan 23. Some of you readers may remember the group Pentangle from back in the day.  Kind of a folk jazz fusion kind of sound.  In addition to getting those tickets, we grabbed some tickets for the Glee Club next Thurs, Fri, and Sat.  No more wandering the rainy streets of late night Glasgow looking for live music on those nights.

Other than that, we went to collect a few more photos of murals. We also made an obligatory stop at one of the Willow Tea Rooms.  Mackintosh designed various tea rooms originally, although much of it has been moved to a museum. We had a nice late afternoon linner sort of meal, before stopping at the local Sainsbury food chain to grab more supplies for our place.

Now for the report on our musical night out with the Bothy Band.

This one will be hard, as this is the band that was the main inspiration for bringing us here this year.  It was so much better than I could have expected. Everyone was waiting for their favorite set of tunes to make an appearance in their play list and I am sure no one was let down. So many of their most famous and driving sets were offered up to us.  There were a few songs, put in to bring everyone’s heart rates down, and then back again with the driving and escalating tunes.  Each player getting their time in the spotlight as the tunes rolled along. The crowd was there to have a great experience and they showed it. The grey heads let their hair down and their hoops and hollers could be heard through the large auditorium.

The Bothy Band always was and still are (in my humble opinion) the very best ever Irish band ever.  And I would bet a 100 to 1, that everyone in packed house would say the same. Individually, they are all great muscians each working on solo projects or in other groups during the past and present. As The Bothy Band, they all come together in blended way to create a sound like no other band to-date can come close to. It’s been decades since the group has been active together as the Bothy Band.

Age has not diminished the skill and passion of delivery of the musicians individually or as a group, nor has time faded the enthusiasm of their fans.  I feel so blessed to have been able to be attend.