Life is so full of a number of things, if not precisely the things one would choose

Life is full of activity, despite what you might expect from two pensioners in lockdown. This was the part of the study behind me as I type - after Mr L had cleared his desk and the filing cabinet, and then various things had got put on the desk because it was a convenient empty surface, the way that things do. Then we got someone to come and take away the cabinet and someone else claimed the desk but wasn't coming to get it yet, so Mr L disassembled the desk and put it into the sitting room so that he could assemble the new bunk beds. 

Then I started sifting through my dad's archives again and found this - Edinburgh University Student Handbook, 1946. Why did you keep this, Dad? As you can see above, hints for students may have changed slightly in tone since then, though the advice is sound enough in general. What did girls do in their spare time?

Oh, this. This is from the section on the Women's Union. Let's forget about being ambitious, girls, and rejoice in our womanliness. Well, why not? 

I rather like this, from the Congregational Students' Society. Inactive but varied. 

Our lives are fairly varied - within limits. For example, one can pick a nice little bunch of flowers from the garden

and go to the Botanics, which is full of rhododendron frilliness. 

Meanwhile, Mr L satisfied himself that his measuring was correct and he would indeed have to move the four (narrow) Billy bookcases one inch to the left. (This is one end of the new bunks.)

While in my own archives, I came across this newspaper photo of my friend Dorothy in a report of her death in Brussels at the age of 23. She was walking along a pavement and a car swerved and hit her. She was one of my best friends from the age of 5 and I often think about her, and about all that she's missed. Another friend had been killed in a car accident the previous year, also aged 23, so that was a grim period and a fairly early lesson about the frailty of life. 

Back in the study, Mr L - and to some extent, I - emptied the bookcases, which made the sitting room look like this for a while. Thankfully, someone collected the desk and now the contents of the bookcases are back again, some of them having been disposed of in the meantime. 

While Son-in-Law 1 helped with the final stages of putting the bunks together, I took Big Grandson on a tram ride - very exciting for this public-transport-addicted 9-year-old who's had to go cold turkey for the past year. We rode out to the airport, which was deserted. 

I bought him a packet of crisps from a vending machine. He read the slogan. "Come on, crisps," he said. "Impress me." Then we rode back into town and got a bus home. Woo hoo. 

And look - bunks in place of the desk and filing cabinet. Not so useful for doing one's paperwork, but more useful for storing grandchildren. 

One can dream.