I have nothing special to report, though Facebook showed me a throwback photo of Big Granddaughter the other day. She's now 12 and quite noticeably taller than me. Our sitting room, where she is, is scarcely any different now. The glass and china on the shelves behind her have been minorly rearranged. The slippers on her feet are mine, and I'm still wearing them. They'd be too small for her now. She's a lovely child still but oh, wasn't she sweet? Sigh. 

Daughter 1's garden had become somewhat weedy and she didn't have time to do a spring (well, and last autumn) tidy, so I asked a gardener for an estimate to sort it out. He estimated £720! For two weedy flowerbeds in a smallish garden! Well, no. "Dad and I will do it," I declared robustly. 

So that's what we've been doing for the last several days. The main problem was Michaelmas daisies which had formed a thick mat and seeded prodigiously. We now think that £720 wasn't such an overestimate. But it's done! For now... .

Rule 1: Never let Michaelmas daisies seed. 

Poor old Mr Life doesn't really do gardening. He doesn't do it for me! But he loves his daughter. (Well, he loves me too...).
 

Lottery

On Saturday, we walked with our friends in East Lothian - five miles, from Haddington to Longniddry. It was perfect weather: sunny, not a breath of wind. 

It was an easy walk, along flattish paths. 

And we ended, as usual, with a coffee and chat. 

Yesterday we went up to visit Son and family. Here's Little Grandson on the swings. 

Son had a go too. 

And then we walked up the hill, into a wood

where quite a few trees were felled by recent storms

and more swinging took place.

So that was all very nice, but today I don't feel very well, and the husband of one of my best friends from schooldays has just phoned to say that she died this afternoon. She had dementia and so it's been very sad for a while, but it's still a bit of a shock. She was always a bit odd in some ways, even as a child, but also a very good friend when we were young, and lots of fun. Life is such a lottery.
 

Time flies like an arrow...

Big Granddaughter is 12! How did that happen??

#

And we went to the Botanics, where...

spring...

is...

definitely...

springing...

at least...

as far as (some of) the rhododendrons are concerned. 

 

Spring

Spring is a-cumin in and Littlest Granddaughter can play in the park after school. 

The great excitement in her life is that she's now got two guinea pigs. She's thrilled! I hope they live long lives...

Daughter 1's garden wall fell down during Storm Eowyn (well, it was pushed over by a blown-down buddleia in between it and the fence next door) and today Darren the Patio came and sorted this out. 

It's now all fixed and much smarter, with a smaller wall which can be weeded behind, and slabs for putting pots of flowers on, maybe?

My friend Janet wanted a fish tank with fish in it, but her family persuaded her that it would be a lot of work, so she got her friends and family to colour in a fish each and she's mounted these. I sent the daughters a photo of the finished "tank", and asked which one they thought I'd done, and within something like 20 seconds, Daughter 2 had screenshotted (is this a word?) the correct one and sent it back to me. How well she knows me! I wasn't surprised at the correctness of the answer, though the speed did surprise me somewhat. (It's the lower middle one with a yellow face, blue body and stripy fins. It's a bit pale compared to some of the others.)

Crocuses and daffodils splashing their colour in the garden. Gosh, a garden - or at least, mine - is a lot of work at this time of year.

These come up by themselves, but I've been slaving away cutting down last year's herbaceous perennials and waging war on bitter cress and that little willow herb with surprisingly long roots. Still, it's all worth it. I do love flowers. 

 

Offspring and snowdrops

Son and family came down at the weekend when Daughter 2 and Littlest Granddaughter were here, and Daughter 1 and family came over too, which was nice. Here are quite a lot of them playing with Lego. The person in blue, sitting on the sofa and bending over, is Big Grandson (13). He is currently rather long-haired. However, he does have beautifully thick hair and is still a lovely boy, though I would prefer that his hair didn't get any longer. 

We also played hide-and-seek in the garden. Here is Small Grandson, hiding (not entirely successfully) on a bench. 

But now, sadly, Daughter 2 and Littlest Granddaughter are back in London, getting trains. 

So Mr Life and I went to an exhibition. I like this painting by James McIntosh Patrick (1907-1998). It's of Stobo Kirk in the Borders. The light and the shadows and the roof shapes are very pleasing. 

Coincidentally, Mr L and I were down near Stobo yesterday, to visit Dawyck Botanic Gardens and to wander among its snowdrops. 

We did this last year too, and I probably took exactly the same photos then. 

There are millions of them. Well, I didn't count them. But certainly tens, if not hundreds, of thousands. 

It was very lovely. Isn't spring just wonderful? 

 

Guests

It's mid-term in England so we've got visitors - Daughter 2 and Littlest Granddaughter. 

She has been very busy. 

Playing with the dolls' house, 

making apple jigsaws and then eating them,

playing with slime. (We went to the corner shop to get the newspaper. I handed over the coupon and LG saw a bottle of slime with an alien in it. "Sorry," I said, "I didn't bring any money with me." "Oh," said the helpful chap behind the counter. "you can pay me tomorrow." Oh, great... So what could a granny do?)

The Edinburgh grandchildren came over as usual on a Friday, so Littlest Granddaughter wanted to make Biggest Granddaughter a birthday cake (her birthday is in a couple of weeks, but LG won't be here). It had to be in the shape of a heart because LG loves BG SO MUCH!

 

Snowdrops in the cold

Yesterday the weather was chilly and damp, and we swithered (good Scottish word meaning that we kept changing our minds) about joining the walking friends - hoping, frankly, that someone would decide to call it off. However, no one did and we pulled ourselves together and went. It remained cold and damp but didn't actually rain, so our virtue was rewarded. There was a smirr in the air; nothing more. This is another Scottish word, which means water particles just hanging, like a very fine but invisible mist. It's a handy word for our climate. 

We walked along by the sea. Can you see it, or the land on the other side? Well, quite. 

We passed the oldest house in Portobello.

and walked on into Musselburgh, where this old phone box has been adopted by the community as a sort of - what would you call it? A shelved plant stand. 

Then we reached Inveresk, a pretty little village, where we visited the garden of Shepherd House. This is a 18th century house which has been lived in since 1957 by a couple, Sir C and Lady F, who have transformed the garden into a thing of beauty, and they open it to the public to raise money for charity - but also, I suppose, because gardeners love to show their plants to other enthusiasts. They're now well into their 90s. 

They have something like 150 varieties of snowdrops, including this one that I really love, with a yellow, um, bit. I thought it might be the calyx but have just looked it up and it isn't. 

I blogged about this garden last year, when we also came to admire the snowdrops.

Sir C, the owner, came out and walked round the garden with us. He's a real pet - 96 and still full of beans. The garden is full of quirky touches, such as this sheep. 

He's better with hellebores than I am. 

This is a window in his summer house. 

He very kindly said we could eat our lunches in their conservatory, which was excellent because we were quite chilly.

So I'm very glad we conquered our laziness and went. It was a lovely day out with nice friends.