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. .
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.
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.
ReplyDeleteCrocuses bloom here in Western Australia at the same time as they do in Scotland. I find that amazing!
ReplyDeleteI 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.
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.
ReplyDeleteLove the crocus field.
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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