Lockdown week 13 - Monday - impatient

That's interesting - Blogger again refused to upload photos just now, but when I tried a third time, it agreed without demur. Hmm. Not that any of my photos are world-shatteringly important. This is Mr L in Daughter 2's flat, which is now becoming quite nice. Not too much to do to make it sellable, though one of the things has been getting a plumber to put in a new bathroom. We have a tendency just to accept the first quote for things but in this case, we got three quotes - or tried to. There was £1000 difference between quotes 1 and 2 and then plumber 3 kept putting off the day when he might manage to quote, so last night we gave up and went with plumber 2. But he hasn't said yet when he might actually do the bathroom.

Among the many unwanted things that the tenants left behind was this collection of spices, herbs and sauces. One of the tenants was a chef. I brought it all home and disposed of most of it, The garden has now been sprinkled in various herbs. I do use dried herbs very occasionally but we all know what would happen if I just put these in my cupboards to join the other ones.

Yesterday we had a day off the flat and went up Corstorphine Hill. The Rose of Sharon is coming out now.

This is actually quite a steep path, though it never looks it in photos. Maybe I ought to take the picture from ankle height. The walls are quite high at this point and though we (or at least I) couldn't see over them to the parts of the golf course on either side, there were a lot of "tok!" noises as golfers did their thing.

And on the downward slope of the hill, it's still pink - so many foxgloves

and the campion, still flowering after many weeks.

Though lockdown has been horrible in some ways, I'm so happy to have had the leisure to spend so much time on the hill. Normally we go up a couple of times a year (why not more?? - we're not that busy) and I've never happened to be there, as far as I remember, during this floral time. It's been so interesting seeing the gradual progression through the seasons from bare branches and yellow gorse to full leaf and pinkpinkpink.

Still desperate to see the distant grandchildren, though. Nicola Sturgeon, our First Minister, is due to make an announcement on Thursday which might open things up a bit, but I doubt that she'll be encouraging us to drive up north or get the train down south to see our much-missed little people (and their much-missed parents). Patience... not my strong point.

I've now finished my third lockdown quilt and my friend is coming to collect the ones for her and her son on Thursday, weather permitting, for garden coffee. Now time to get back to the archive-sorting.