Lockdown week 5 - Sunday

The ongoing saga of the gate: is it open?

Yes, it is. Excellent. We can again roam from one half of the golf course to the other.

I realise that this is perhaps not riveting reading, but we must take our excitement where we can at the moment. It's nice to be able to see a long way, over the sea to Fife.

The celandines are lovely at the moment, as long as they're not in my garden.

This is a big old tree. Mr L stands there for comparison. It looks dead but it does have buds. It's hard to tell at the moment what kind of tree it is, or at least, it is for me.

 
I imagine it's a couple of hundred years old, dating back to when these hillsides were sheep fields instead of a golf course.

In the distance you can see the forest of cranes that have been there for several years now. A horrible 60s shopping centre was demolished and a new one is - was - being put up instead. Behind the cranes, Edinburgh's Disgrace is just about visible - one wall of pillars of something looking like an ancient Greek temple, built by subscription to commemorate the soldiers and sailors who died in the Napoleonic Wars. The estimated cost was £42,000. The construction was begun in 1826 once a third of the money had been collected, but funds ran out and it was abandoned.

And there's the sleeping lion of Arthur's Seat again.

One the way home, we passed this house, which is actually a retirement home for Christian Scientists. On Open Doors Day a few years ago this was opened to visitors and we went to see it. It was really lovely inside, with vistas from one part of the building to another. It wasn't at that point full - I'm not sure if we have lots of Christian Scientists in Edinburgh but the house might tempt one to convert.

Three and a bit miles.

In the afternoon, I battled with things that I once innocently planted and which now threaten to take over: lily of the valley and Japanese anenomes. Both lovely, if they would just stay where they were put. But they're both on the march. I'm getting a bit old and stiff for digging things out and it was rather hot for strenuous exercise. 

And then I put together the middle bit of a quilt for Small Grandson and quilted one of the ones for my friend whose husband died. So busy!

And so without the grandchildren. O woe.