Various aspects of weather

Ah, it's bearded iris time. I do love an iris. The magenta...

 
and the pale blue...

and the white...

and the lilac. Pity they don't bloom for long.

The garden is looking generally flowery and June-like, but we've had no rain for weeks and I've been dotting around with my watering can. They keep promising us rain, but very little has so far arrived.

I was standing at a bus stop the other day when the annual taxi drivers' outing passed by - about fifty decorated taxis taking deprived (I think?) children to the seaside for the day. The children were armed with supersoakers. Fortunately I had a bus shelter to hide behind. The children were having a lovely time but I hope they'd been told not to aim at the rather more elderly than me!

Yesterday, Mr L and I visited the Victoria Crowe portrait exhibition at the Portrait Gallery. I would recommend it: she's painted all sorts of high-achieving (and admirable) people, including in the portraits objects and images relevant to their careers, and there was interesting information beside each one saying how she found the experience.

The building is an amazing Victorian neo-Gothic confection.

And it has an excellent cafe. We had walked to the gallery, so felt justified in having a cake. One doesn't want to become too healthy. 

And today we had the Edinburgh grandchildren, as we always do on Fridays - Edinburgh schoolchildren have Friday afternoons off - a good wheeze which, alas, never happened when I was a school teacher or, come to that, a pupil. Must be a bit of a nightmare for working parents with no family back-up, though.

They tore up tissue paper to make an avalanche, thus creating a blockage to add drama to this railway layout. "The snow," narrated Biggest Granddaughter, "coils lovingly round the engines."