Took the 57 from its Castlemilk terminus this morning, meaning to walk the route back toward the city rather than catch the return bus. Had the map folded to the wrong quadrant for a solid ten minutes before I noticed, which set a reliable tone for the rest of the day.

The stretch through Toryglen is not what you'd call scenic but it has a logic to it — houses set back from the road in that particular post-war way, as if they're being polite. Someone had arranged three wheelie bins into an approximate pyramid outside a close on Prospecthill Road. I don't know why. I didn't ask. I did stop and look at it longer than was warranted.

Coming down into Rutherglen the high street was doing its Monday thing: quieter than a Saturday, more honest about it. A few folk with messages, a man outside a bookies reading his phone with the solemn concentration of a scholar. I passed a bakery vent and caught the warm-flour smell of something just pulled from the oven, which was enough to make me stop and go in. Square sausage roll, still hot through the paper bag. Ate it at the corner of Main Street, burned the roof of my mouth, because that's what I do.

There's a gable end on one of the side streets off King Street where you can still read an old painted advert through the whitewash — or I think you can. The letters come and go depending on the light and your angle, like they're deciding whether to be remembered. I stood there long enough that a dog walker slowed down to see what I was looking at, then apparently decided I wasn't worth investigating.

Crossed the Clyde at Dalmarnock Bridge and walked the north bank back toward the city. Got turned around where the path splits near the old works site and ended up going upstream for a good stretch before the map finally convinced me I was wrong. The river offers no hints on this.

Finished near Bridgeton Cross, feet filing their usual complaints. Fourteen kilometres by my reckoning, give or take wherever I went wrong.

#walking #glasgow #southside #mondaymiles