Rhonda Bracey: At Random

What a day! The 4 to 5 hour train ride to Glasgow is certainly the way to go! You’d spend almost as much time if you were travelling by plane, what with waiting around at airports, checking in, going through security etc. plus getting to/from the airport. Instead, we left our London hotel, went to Euston station and boarded the Avanti West Coast Line for Glasgow. No security checks, no baggage drops. The train can travel at 180 to 200 kph. I’m not sure we were going that fast, though we were certainly moving along. On arrival at Glasgow station, we almost literally walked across the road to our hotel. Not so easy on a plane!

Tonight we had a group dinner with a very special surprise the hour or so beforehand—we were treated to an amazing amount of Gaelic history by the Inverclyde Waulking Group. Waulking is the process of softening fabric (typically the wool used in tweed) and has a long and ancient history, accompanied by very old songs that were sung when women did this work. This group of 5 women explained the process of working the wool, from shearing to cleaning to carding, and then spinning. After that the wool is woven and tweed is the result. But that’s not the end— the tweed is very rough and has to be softened, and part of that process is waulking. We all participated in the waulking with the women as they sang the songs associated with this work. This was not something on the usual tourist route, and we were very privileged to learn and participate.

One of the Inverclyde Waulking Group showing traditional spinning on a spindle. The women would walk around with these spindles tucked into a pocket or a waistband, and in any free moments would spin yarn using the power of gravity and the spinning nature of the spindle. The spinning wheel changed all that—it tied women to the home to spin.