The older I get, and this week I just got a bit older (happy birthday to me), the more I think of myself as an extrovert with an introvert trying to escape.

My party animal nieces say, “auntie, how come you don’t go out at the weekends anymore?” and I reply, “I was out, now I’m in!”

I’m not, though. I’m always traipsing about outdoors, albeit at a snail’s pace, to the park or just up the road to the wildlife corridor, the canal bank, with my Border Collie shadowing my every move.

So, when Garscube Community Foundation volunteers asked me – as their ‘celebrity patron’ – to start off the Walk the Wharf sponsored walk at the weekend there, I announced my starting pistol was at the ready.

Read more: Libby McArthur: Celebrating the Govan boat building project

Celebrity patron? Dizzy bird more like. I got my beginnings and my ends all mixed up and turned up at the finish line instead, wondering why there was tea, coffee and cake under a gazebo there.

By the time I had run the route to the actual starting position, my makeup was running down my face and I was wabbit.

They had set off already and though not worth a tuppence, I soon got my wind back and fell in line with all the families, old folks, weans and dogs and they all had a good laugh at my expense.

It all got me thinking about how our concept of community has changed in the 21st century. I remember us weans doing sponsored races in the back court in Castlemilk.

Sponsor sheet in hand, you would chap just about every door in the street and often, it’d be our auntie’s and our granny’s doors.

On the day, the women would bring out kitchen stools to sit along the wall. I’d be sent running to the Drake café, holding in my white- knuckled fist, a sixpence, a thrupenny bit and three big copper pennies, to purchase Black Jacks and Fruit Salads, 12 of each.

This allowed for 24 races and a chew for each winner. I’m sure the women were having a wee bet on us weans racing up and down the back court. Oh, I was fast then, even in my big brother’s wellies.

These days, most young folk’s partiality for online communities and social networking is seen as a poor replacement for face-to-face time. I don’t see it that way. To me, nurturing relationships that make you feel happy, supported and satisfied, is important whether it’s online or offline.

It felt great to sit alone reading a ton of birthday messages from folk I haven’t spoken to in donkey’s years on Facebook, but am also glad that these days my circle of “physical friends” is smaller.

Read more: Libby McArthur: The two heroes of Park Mobility

That said, loneliness is one of the biggest crises apparent in our communities today and there is a big difference between Greta Garbo’s, demurring, “I want to be alone” and Bridget Jones’s wail, “All by myself” (according to the nieces I’m a match for the latter) so I’m all for a two-pronged approach.

I am loving the free social network site ‘Nextdoor’. It’s a way for neighbours to share stuff online about everything from a decent plumber to a recent break in. It’s also a way for folk to volunteer for stuff and as I learned on my walk with the Garscube Foundation volunteers there’s no better antidote to loneliness than giving somebody else a leg up!

And finally...

Childhood punishments are now your favourite thing to do: an early bed and in doors all weekend.