Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Crocuses again

After my piano lesson today, I walked across Bruntsfield Links, among the crocuses.
I wouldn't care for a purple and yellow dress, but it does look good as a spring splash of colour.
Then I crossed the Meadows on my way down to Princes Street. As I did so, I thought of my maternal grandfather, who lived near here as a boy and played various sports in the Meadows. (The sporting gene didn't come down to my brother and me.) It's a wonderful green space which, in warm weather, is full of young people playing games or sunbathing or picnicking - it's near university buildings and residences. Not that my grandfather was able to go to university, though he was a clever man. He became a compositor - printer - the person who set the type, in mirror image; so he had to be able to spell backwards. He would have liked to be a doctor, but there was no money in the family for education past the age of - I don't know - fourteen, I imagine.
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Mind you, he was a bit grumpy and opinionated. Not sure that he would have made a very soothing doctor.
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The potential buyers are sending a surveyor to inspect my mum's flat tomorrow. Let's hope he doesn't see any snags.

4 comments:

  1. Perhaps if your grandfather had realised his dream of becoming a doctor he wouldn't have been so grumpy? Crocuses are very pretty but don't grow here.....our corner of the world isn't cold enough.

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  2. The Mof8:20 am

    Crocuses bloom here in Western Australia at the same time as they do in Scotland. I find that amazing!

    I am imagining the churchyard at Balmaghie near Castle Douglas where I went as a child. The grounds were a solid mass of purple and yellow in early March.

    Keeping fingers crossed for the sale of your mothers flat.

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  3. I don't mind a grumpy doctor who knows what he's doing. I can't imagine setting type backwards, I'd be lucky to set it right forwards.
    Love the crocus field.

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  4. My American Grandfather was a typesetter, and my English one ran a print shop. He had wanted to go to Grammar School, but was pushed into an apprenticeship instead, his family couldn't afford for him to pursue an academic career either.

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