Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Two walks


I thought I'd show my walk yesterday from the bus stop to the dentist - for anyone who doesn't know Edinburgh. This is the New Town (begun 1780, so not exactly brand new), built in a neo-Classical style.


 As you can see, it was a lovely day - though somewhat chilly.


Ah, it's the start of the foreign-student-on-educational-trip-abroad season.  Lots of Italian giggling from this lot.


There are lots of little gardens - and some not so little - in the New Town.


This is my dentist's street.


And here's where he operates - bathed in angelic light. He has only the ground floor. Originally his premises and the storeys above and below would have been one house - the basement kitchen and so on and the attic bedrooms for the servants and the rest for the family. Nowadays, the whole house would cost one and a half million pounds at least.


There's cherry blossom everywhere. So pretty, if transient ... like life - no, let's not start thinking about death again.


Today Mr L and I decided to get the train to Falkirk and walk from there to the Kelpies. We'd been going to do it yesterday but the forecast said there was 80% chance of precipitation in Edinburgh (though in fact we had bright sunshine all day) so we postponed it to today (50% chance). Well, it wasn't precipitating much at first as we walked along the canal.


This is a swan on its nest. As you can see, it's using all of itself to keep its eggs warm - wisely - there was a cold wind.

Gorse. Looking at it, I was thinking about Meg, who said that gorse was a pest in Australia. It's sometimes controlled here by setting fire to it. But I don't suppose that this would be a good idea in Australia, where the earth isn't dampened so often by the gentle rain from heaven.


We got to the Falkirk Wheel (amazing feat of engineering - sort of giant lock) and decided to have an early lunch.

Then it began to hail - really quite hard - and the sky turned to a uniform dark grey as the hail became rain.

After consideration, we got a bus back to Falkirk - at which point the sun came out. We'll do the rest of the walk another day.

10 comments:

  1. I love going along with you on walks about. :) I apologize for not popping in more, but I do read and love your posts, your floral and town pictures and your adorable family, too! Sending hugs from Ohio, which has been dreary for days but now has some sun!

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  2. I take careful note of the weather forecast, but the weather doesn't always cooperate with the forecasters. I was inadequately dressed for the chill wind today. I love the coconut smell of gorse, a feature that was not apparent to me until recently. There has been mass clearance of it on one of our walks and it has opened up the views quite unexpectedly.

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  3. Sounds as though your nice day wasn't so nice after all! Yes, gorse (and many other plants from overseas) are pests here, because we don't have your cold winters......our climate is so mild that they continue to grow all year round.

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  4. Ha! I think of the places I've been lucky enough to visit, Scotland has the hardest time following the forecast. Or predicting the weather -- however you choose to look at it. Sorry about your bad weather. We're having an unbelieveably late spring -- here it is almost May and the trees are just barely beginning to tinge green. It might help if we'd stop having frost int he early mornings!

    Oh, and I love your pretty new header!!!

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  5. Oh my, I love those Kelpies - and your weather sounds just like it was the day we were there to see them!
    Still waiting on the blossoms over this way. Something to look forward to.

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  6. Anonymous7:00 pm

    I am itching to see the Falkirk Wheel and the Kelpies and hoping that my dream will come true in the next couple of weeks!

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  7. I never tire of seeing the photos of where you live...not that I tire of the other photos! But I do love seeing around the places where my cyberspace friends live. Love your blossom photo, what a lovely picture to see when one clicks on a link to open your blog :-)

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  8. You may not have our warm sunshine but I think you are amply compensated with beautiful places to walk and soft days like the one in question here. Love the cherry blossom!

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  9. Yes , it's the constant variety of the weather in Scotland that I most remember !

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  10. When I retire, I intend to visit Scotland and Ireland since one set of grandparents came from there. Plus, it looks beautiful!

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