After the horrors of Covid-19, the frustrations with lockdown and isolation, the nation, for the most part, had something to get excited about – Scotland’s appearance in the Euro 2020 finals.

OK, it ended as we knew it would – a world of hope and excitement in the weeks leading up to the tournament, and then ‘pop’, reality kicks in and another bubble bursts – but so much good came out of the finals for our nation.

We came together in support of our nation, children in Clydebank and beyond campaigned proudly to watch our team play in class, our flags flew from windows and cars – Scotland’s flag, the people’s flag. We all came together as one during this time.

Oh, we knew it would not last, but we did it the Scottish way, we had a ball while it did last over the three games they played.

I would like to see more come out of our participation than just two weeks of excitement. I would like to see our parks busy again with kids kicking a ball around like it used to be before Covid arrived in our country.

We can’t watch our stars of the future play if we do not give them the opportunity to play now.

On Tuesday, June 22, I had a tour of the district heating centre at Queens Quay. After years of fighting for this, it was amazing to stand inside knowing it was up and running, quietly supplying water and heating as well as saving those hooked up to it money – a lot of money.

It should not be under estimated what the council stands to achieve here. As well as attacking fuel poverty, cutting our carbon footprint and doing amazing things for the environment, we are now leading the way in clean efficient energy production – a true legacy and something we can be extremely proud of.

I had a very good conversation with one of the experts on the project. He was extremely encouraging about the prospect of getting the system in to Dalmuir and beyond. Time will tell, but I left with a lot more hope.

I was also very impressed with the backup systems that are in place. Nothing can be completely failproof, but they have put in place as much as possible to ensure there are no major issues in terms of system failure. All in all it’s a very impressive set-up.