Flowers and such like

The house I grew up in had two greenhouses, in one of which was a large, twining hoya carnosa.  When I got married (52+ years ago) and left home, I took a cutting, and this is it, still blooming away. The flowers are waxy and scented, and drip sticky nectar, so you couldn't have it sitting on your best furniture, but it's pretty and it reminds me of home, and my dad. I think I've only repotted it once, which I imagine is why the plant remains conveniently small.

We went on a walk with the walking chums on Saturday in East Lothian, and saw, among other things, Saltcoats Castle, which I'd never heard of. It was apparently built around 1590, but has been left to dereliction and is mainly unvisited. Scotland has lots of castles and not all can be carefully preserved. There was an ancient pear tree growing beside it.

A couple of us tried one of the pears, but it was like biting into soft wood - pretty dry and tasteless. Our horticultural expert said that the tree could be hundreds of years old, and our newer varieties have been bred to be soft and juicy. I suppose that, in the middle of winter hundreds of years ago, with food scarce, you might be happy to stew these pears and eat them. 

It's very good farming land round here. 

6 miles - we had a good time in perfect walking weather. 

On Sunday we went up to visit Son and family. We went to Dundee Botanic Gardens, and Medium Granddaughter, now more or less recovered from her ruptured appendix, enjoyed playing with the sensitive plant. 

It's lovely to see them. I wish they lived nearer, though. I hate motorways and am always very frightened on them. 

Our garden is mainly over, but the annuals still put on a good show. 

Yesterday was Daughter 1's birthday and she had the day off, so we met at the art gallery for coffee

and then went to the Andy Goldsworthy exhibition. He's an artist who creates art with natural objects, mainly outside. Here, he'd done some stuff inside, such as this corridor between cut branches

and this pattern made by removing one side of bracken fronds and arranging them in a serpentine shape. 

This was inspired by the Rockefeller Center, which has flags from each of the US states flying outside it. Goldsworthy got the reddest earth he could from each state and used them to dye fabric, hoping to signify that borders can be transcended. This would be nice!

But we all liked his outside work best. And there were lots of photos of it: ephemeral art works he's created over the years. Here, he's arranged yellow and black leaves in and around tree trunks. 

 

These are foxglove flowers cupped into one another. 

It was an interesting exhibition. He has a lot of patience!

Musings

Life is .... well, I was about to say "quiet at the moment", but in fact it's quite busy, mainly with unremarkable events such as both choirs starting up - the one of which I'm chair having had a party and  a committee meeting, both involving a certain amount of organisation on my part - and a visit to the optician for a check - that sort of thing. We've been on various minor walks, including to the Botanics, where I said hello to my favourite tree. 

I wonder if I dare try growing some of these nice big asters aka Michaelmas daisies? I have the little ones in the garden, having foolishly accepted some bits of it from somewhere, and I spend quite a lot of my life rooting them out. Must ask our gardening expert friend if the big, jolly ones are less invasive. 

The Botanics meadow planting is nearly over, but is still quite pretty. 

I was interested in this notice, which tells us that Fat Hen - which is growing prolifically in their meadow beds - came to Britain from central Asia about 10,000 years ago and arrived in Scotland 6,000 years ago. It was used as chicken feed, and "we did not plant it here". But it planted itself!

Why am I writing all this? 

And why, I wonder do people on Instagram post videos of themselves crying? It's a strange phenomenon - the ones I see (I don't seek them out) are young women, weeping about genuinely sad happenings such as their husbands leaving them/dying or their children having terrible diseases. I can entirely see why they're so sad, and want sympathy. Sympathy is very nice, when one is sad. But I can't see why they film their tears, complete with nose-blowing. I suppose it's just an extension of the way people on the media talk about their "mental health", when as far as one can see they just mean that life's a bit difficult and stressful and they're fed up. Some people do have mental health problems, of course, and that's awful. But I wish we could keep the term for those who are seriously unwell with them, rather than the stressed and a bit unhappy. 

Getting old and grumpy? Me? Surely not. 

 

August continued

This is one of Littlest Granddaughter's simpler ideas - making a quilt for Mummy to use "as a decoration". I'm not sure that Mummy needs such a decoration, but it can become a doll's quilt. Littlest did actually do some of the sewing, though her role was mainly supervisory. She also chose all the fabrics, arranged them, and decided on the quilting, backing and binding. 

A few days after Son and his children visited us, poor little Medium Granddaughter was taken ill with appendicitis. Luckily both her parents are doctors and they took her into hospital, but her appendix actually burst, and she had quite a long operation and recovery time. Thankfully she's all right now, but as you can imagine we were all very worried about her. 

Daughter 1 came round. Littlest became a mermaid with a sand tail. 

Another day, Littlest and I went to the park. She had a happy time playing with thistledown and - it was a hot day - I sat down in the shade beside her. Almost immediately a young woman came up and asked if I was all right. Kind, but discouraging! I must look feebler than I feel...

And Mr L, Daughter 2 and Littlest and I went to Jupiter Artland (with balloons for some reason) and she had a good time running around the Land Forms. 

My nephew's fiancee and my brother and sister-in-law came to stay as well. The house was rather full, but it was nice to see them all. 

We made a top hat so that Littlest could be a magician, and she mopped the kitchen floor. Shades of The Sorcerer's Apprentice. 

And we went to the Zoo (see the meerkat?), 

where she made friends with a small boy, so he and his dad spent the afternoon going around the zoo with us. 

One day she painted with her feet. The lawn is still quite colourful. 

But now they've all gone back down south. The house is a lot quieter and not yet quite tidy. And it's nice not to be so busy. But I'm sad, as I always am when Daughter 2 has been and then gone back down to London. 
 

August

It's been a busy month so far. Nephew has been here for the month - though he's no trouble - performing in the Fringe. Littlest Granddaughter (she's not no trouble) and Daughter 2 are also staying for the month. Son and family came for the night and admired the guinea pigs (here for 6 weeks). 

Small Granddaughter is full of creative ideas. Creative, ambitious and requiring grandparental input.

The guinea pigs, by contrast, are fairly undemanding.

 

We've played in the sand pit. 

And the park. 

To be continued. 

 

Abundance

There's been lots of sunny weather, but it's also been quite windy. I do love verbena bonariensis when it sways in the breeze, though. Goodness, but it seeds itself around, and it's hard to throw away healthy seedlings. 

This perennial sweet pea also seeds itself, and one of its seedlings grew into this differently-coloured version, which I've never seen anywhere else, and like a lot. 

Otherwise, lilies, phlox and the thuglike but pretty Japanese anemones bloom enthusiastically on. 

Littlest Granddaughter at Kings Cross Station in London, on her way to see us (not alone!).

This is a very visitory time of year for us. Littlest Granddaughter's guinea pigs have been with us for a few weeks now while their owners were in France. Nephew, a musician, is staying while he appears in the Fringe Festival during August. Daughter 2 and Littlest Granddaughter are here for help with childminding while Daughter 2 works; Son-in-Law 2 also appears in the Fringe for most of the month.  

Son, Small Grandson and Medium Granddaughter came for a couple of days. They liked the guinea pigs. Medium is 9 today. 

 Then our nephew's fiancee arrives on Saturday and my brother and his wife next Thursday. So it's really lovely, but maybe a trifle chaotic. But what's a bit of chaos, in a family house? I feel very lucky to have them all around.  


 

Antisyzygy

While awful things happen in the world, and Mr Trump is visiting Scotland and costing us vast sums in policing, things proceed placidly in our little corner. The guinea pigs are well, as far as we can tell. Not off their food, anyway. 

We visited the Botanics, as so often, and admired their little wildflower bit. I love cornflowers. I used to grow them as a child. My parents gave me a little bit of garden and I grew cornflowers, candytuft, Virginian stocks, nasturtiums, clarkia. I always loved flowers, even as a small child. I think I was quite solitary - I had an older brother, who was (is) nice, but I remember wandering contentedly round the garden, smelling lilacs and admiring the way that raindrops shone like jewels on lupin leaves. 

I really like this fluffy, droopy chap. It's evidently:

Quite tempted to get some, though where I would put it...

Here's my favourite old chap by my favourite tree, which is: 

or the bald cypress - very rude. It sheds its leaves in winter. Definitely haven't got room for one of those in my garden, but in my next life, when I'm rich, I shall definitely have one on my estate. 

Meanwhile, Daughter 2 and Littlest Granddaughter are in France, with friends, while Son-in-Law 2 is up in Edinburgh with his theatre group. 

I've pieced together the back of the rainbow quilt from a duvet cover and odd bits, 

and we visited Son and family on a lovely Dundee day. There are squirty things on the promenade along the river front. I wouldn't mind having a go myself, but it would have been undignified to get that wet. 

 And now Nephew is with us to perform in the Fringe, while we await Daughter 2 and Littlest on Monday. The fun begins!

I learned a new word today from the newspaper: antisyzygy. It tends to be a Scottish thing (Caledonian antisyzygy) evidently, meaning dualling polarities within a single entity. Jekyll and Hyde, New Town and Old Town, Scottish but British. Sounds most uncomfortable.