Too hot!

The children are on holiday from school, and since Son-in-Law 1 has a chronic illness and Daughter 1 works full-time, we're seeing a lot of them. We walked from their house along to Dr Neil's Garden, on the shores of Duddingston Loch. 

There are views of the hill and of the loch. This is all inside the city, not far from the centre. 

I'm not sure where these geese thought they were going but they seemed very purposeful.

Another day we had lunch in a beach-side cafe and then

they played in the sand. This was the start of major engineering works designed by Big Grandson. 

On Saturday, which was very hot, Mr L and I went with our walking friends round/up the hill - the same one that you can see from Dr Neil's Garden. The pink flowers are rosebay willowherb, a fearful weed really, but very pretty. 

Here's Duddingston Loch again, seen from above, 

and there are the distant Pentland Hills just on the other side of Edinburgh.

Edinburgh is a very green city. Can you see the stable block of the Prestonfield Hotel? - the round building. It's now roofed over and used for events. The hotel itself, built in 1657, used to be a private house. It's the white building, behind and to the left of the stables, on the other side of some trees. 

It was a lovely day out with our friends but it was really too hot* for stravaiging around and we were somewhat exhausted and toasted by the end of it. We only walked about 6 miles but they were quite uppy-downy miles and as the sun beat down, the Factor 50 got wiped off our sweaty faces. 

And then later on Saturday, Daughter 1 and family came to tea because it was Big Grandson's 10th birthday. Double figures! Daughter 1 made him an excellent cake, featuring a cityscape (as requested). 

The children stayed the night, and the next morning we went for a walk to the tram station. You can see trains from there too. Exciting! (I'm told.)

And so the time passes busily away. They're now down in Worcester, visiting Son-in-Law's family. So we have a more peaceful week - though so far I've had some friends of mine for coffee today, we went out for a meal with Mr L's cousin this evening, we're visiting Son tomorrow and then on Thursday - momentously - we're having friends over for the day whom we haven't seen since the end of 2019 because of the pandemic. They live over in the west. So, not that peaceful. 

(*By "too hot", I mean 25C / 77F. I realise that this isn't hot by some standards, but we're delicate British flowers who aren't designed for heat, especially when climbing hills.)