Yet more pictures

More from the archives - my rather handsome father-in-law and my (perhaps less striking) mother-in-law. Sadly he died in 1984, when Son was 12 days old. Granddad said, when he first saw Son, that he'd always wanted a grandson. He'd been tactful enough not to say this when we had two girls first. And then he took ill and died. Very sad. And she died in 1992. Poor Mr Life.

I found a diary that I kept on a French exchange in 1967, when I was newly 17. It was a simultaneous exchange, so that the partners were in the other's country and weren't there to amuse each other. This weekend apparently wasn't the most successful occasion. We'd gone to the family's country cottage, where there was nothing at all to do. The parents didn't seem to be getting on with each other, though Richard, the little brother, was very nice. 

On Saturday we went for a town walk with our walking group. We went along a cycle/path till we got to the Queen's Park and then went round our beautiful city hill. It was a lovely day.

Then we had coffee at Holyrood Palace, Her Maj wasn't there. She has a few problems to sort out, poor soul. 

A few days later Mr L and I were back, this time to see the Leonardo drawings at the Queen's Gallery. The portrait on the brochure is of him, by a pupil,

as is this one. Like my father-in-law, he looks like quite a handsome chap. (Sorry about the reflected spotlights.)

The drawings are amazing. This is a study for the head of Leda when she was about to be seduced by the swan. The finished picture fell into a ruinous state and was destroyed in the 1700s. Hmm.

This is a map he drew of a town near Florence. He paced the streets and took bearings from a tower in the central piazza and then constructed the map by geometry. It's apparently very accurate.

(Reflected spotlights again.)

A horse. Such movement. The very essence of horse.

A cat. Such stillness. Such catlikeness. (More spotlights.)

He had all sorts of projects that he sketched in his books, most of which he never finished or in some cases doesn't seem to have started. (We're all a bit like that...) I wonder whether he died (at 67) frustrated at these unfulfilled plans or if the pleasure was in the planning and in some cases he never really intended to carry them out? - such as an encyclopedia of botany or a treatise on anatomy, many sketches for both of which are in the exhibition.

This is our parliament building. I don't think it's very attractive. I wonder what Leonardo would think? 

This is me, drawn by Middle Granddaughter. I don't look like a model. Well, sadly, I don't look like a model. But how cheerful I am.