She has lived in Glasgow for more than 30 years but Delgados frontwoman Emma Pollock still feels like a tourist.
"When I wake up on a Saturday morning, I still feel excited that I can go out and do anything I want," she says, recoiling in mock horror when asked if she ever contemplated moving beyond the city limits.
The 51-year-old singer-songwriter arrived in Glasgow from rural Galloway as a teenager to study physics at Strathclyde University before her life took a more creative direction, although she is quick to point out the well recognised link between music and maths.
Much has been written recently about Glasgow's problems and the reported "demise" of the City Centre but it's a place she says she's never contemplated leaving.
"In the 1990s, Glasgow and its developing confidence - following the Garden Festival and City of Culture - fed into a belief and excitement and an optimism that led to all these bands forming including The Delgados," she says.
"We almost felt as if we were handed this opportunity on a plate, to be in a band and form a record company and start a recording studio.
"We knew there were people there who needed it," she says.
"I don't think that would have happened in any other city and I still think it's an absolutely wonderful city to be an artist."
The Delgados will perform their second big comeback gig in Glasgow on August 12 at the Summer Nights at the Bandstand festival in Kelvingrove Park.
READ MORE: Catherine Salmond: 'We have a responsibility to shape the future of Glasgow'
It follows a sell-out gig at the Barrowlands in January, the first time The Delgadoes had performed together in 18 years.
"I don't think any of us appreciated how much we had missed it," says the singer and guitarist. "I feel a bit regretful that we didn't do it before.
"If I could have bottled that feeling...
"I'm hoping the bandstand will be a bit more relaxed. It's a fantastic venue, it's got a really good feel to it and it's a big, big space.
"People are surprised to hear that it's bigger than the Barrowlands."
The Delgados launched independent record label Chemikal Underground in 1994 at Glasgow, to release their first single Monica Webster / Brand New Car and went on to break many new Scottish bands in the nineties including Arab Strap and Mogwai.
They quickly enjoyed commercial success becoming a favourite of Radio One's John Peel and securing a Mercury Music Prize nomination in 2000 for the album, The Great Eastern.
"In the 1990s bands could afford to move to Glasgow and live here and give it a go and to some extent it's still possible. It's just that the industry has kind of collapsed.
"You don't necessarily expect to do it full-time. There are a lot of artists who have supplementary incomes including us.
"We still run Chemical Underground, we still run the studio.
"If you look at the artists who are headlining festivals or sustaining careers, they all got together ten years ago.
"There isn't the same investment on the ground because there's no money in the industry. The record companies are making money out of streaming. It's a passive income, they don't have to do anything.
READ MORE: Council plan for ailing City Centre 'will give confidence to investors'
"But every now and again there will be [someone] very lucky, or very talented...or the stars might align and they will be afforded the chance to build a serious career but those artists are few and far between."
She launched a solo career after the band split in 2005 and acknowledges that it was not as successful as the band's.
"But what I learned, now that we are all older, is that it was always about the music and the relationships."
While passionate about the sciences, she is "delighted" that her 21-year-old son Ben will begin a degree course in philosophy at the University of Glasgow in September and believes a successful educational arena should value both "the dreamers and the practical kids."
"According to Rishi Sunak, there's no point in doing an arts degree," she says,
"He says that they are not as good value for the students but since when was university meant to be a vocational place, that's college.
"University has traditionally had a slightly different emphasis about exploring and learning. The world is made bigger.
"It is a massive debate," she added. What is education for? Is it for the individual or is it for society?"
"We shouldn't be separating out the arts and the sciences. There is a huge overlap between maths and music, they use the same part of the brain.
"There is a ridiculous simplification and dumbing down of our application of education in this country."
She lives in Strathbungo in Glasgow's South Side with her husband, Delgados drummer Paul Savage, an area that she says has "real vibrancy" at the moment.
"In the strip that is basically Strathbungo there is an extraordinary amount going on in food and drink," she says.
"There are fantastic bars and restaurants that are doing things that are really bold."
READ MORE: In pictures: South Side streets transformed into 'window wonderland'
She singles out the Sunny Acre cafe, that was launched by two Scots who had been living in Manhattan, as well as the restaurant Lobo and Marchtown for "unbelievably brilliant wine and cocktails and specialist beers."
"All of these places are independent and it shows," she says.
"A great city is full of discoveries that keep popping up - that's what makes it exciting.
"We've got amazing pop-up shops and record stores and it's all within a radius of a mile or half a mile.
"It's also coming from the fact that accommodation there is slightly cheaper, in Govanhill, so you've got a lot of artists living there.
"There is a real feeling of artistic possibility."
The Delgados will appear at the Summer Nights at the Bandstand festival on August 12. For tickets click here
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