Goodbye, 2021

Well, this Christmas doesn't take its place among the most stellar ever, I have to say. On the day itself the Edinburgh family came, which was very nice. Here is Biggest Granddaughter wearing her Batman onesie and reading a book - her favourite activity. But neither Daughter 1 nor Big Grandson was very well (not Covid, just a bad fluey cold/cough) and Grandson is far from recovered even now. 

However, the real problem has been with Daughter 2 and family. Her parents-in-law live in a small house, so when they want to see the family for any length of time, everyone goes to Center Parcs, not far from where SIL2's parents live. Daughter 2 was dubious about this because of Covid, but both her parents-in-law are disabled and use mobility scooters, so Center Parcs is good for them.  They've had a pretty isolated time since the first lockdown. Also, Daughter 2's husband's sister and BIL moved to Norway with their children in the spring (BIL is Norwegian). So this was a big family reunion.

Everyone lateral-flowed themselves multiple times, Daughter 2 kept Littlest Granddaughter off nursery for ten days to avoid infection and they stayed mainly in their flat. Littlest is exceedingly motion sick, especially in a car, so SIL2 took a taxi, with all their stuff and Christmas presents, from their suburb to King's Cross Station, while Daughter 2 and Littlest went by tube. Then they travelled by train to the nearest station and got a lift to Center Parcs from SIL's sister. The Norwegian lot had flown over, spent two days in a hotel till they got their PCR results and finally they all met up at Center Parcs on Thursday, for a week. Then on Friday, SIL2 became ill and tested positive for Covid. And on Saturday, Christmas Day, Daughter 2 tested positive and on Boxing Day, Littlest did.

So obviously they had to go home. But now they couldn't go home by train because they had Covid. So they had to wait till things opened up on Sunday, hire a car (SIL2's s sister had to hire it because neither Daughter 2 nor her husband could go to the hire place) Daughter 2 was named as the other driver, and she had to drive them home in the dark (so that Littlest was asleep and thus not vomiting). Meanwhile the rest of the family had to go home on Monday before they came down with it. The timing of it all could hardly have been worse.

And by now they've almost all tested positive. 

And this is with all the adults triple-vaccinated. Though fortunately, so far none of them is particularly ill - just feeling very tired and as if they have a really bad cold. 

So that cast a blight - obviously over their Christmas but also over ours - we were so upset for them and so worried about them. I hate my beloved people travelling by car, especially ill and in the dark. However, everyone did get safely home and they're all now isolating. 

Which means, of course, that Daughter 2 isn't, as planned, coming up here for New Year for our family reunion - which isn't happening at all because Son feels he shouldn't come down either - we're again limited to three households meeting up and, being a doctor, he really doesn't want to complicate life by getting Covid. 

Ah well, ah well, there are much worse things happening to other people. But one is - everyone is - rather fed up with yet more restrictions to normal life. Presumably we'll all get Covid in the end, anyway. But it's as well not to get it while the NHS is overburdened by the non-vaccinated becoming ill and needing hospitalisation. I wish everyone would just get the jab - or, as we tend to say in Scotland, the jag.

At least the Botanics aren't shut (yet) so we went the other day and admired their wicker decorations. There are 12 of these, such as...

one for twelve drummers drumming,

one for ten lords a-leaping,

eight maids a-milking

and five gold rings. Aren't they lovely? 

And I've been trying to improve the not-so-shining hour by making two quilts at once for the new bunks in the study, bought for when we have the whole family here. Oh, the irony. 

But we do have the Edinburgh lot, which is lovely. We went for a walk yesterday in Inverleith Park. It was a trifle dreich but we had a nice time. 

 

There was a heron, whose stance suggested that he was a bit fed up too. 

Ah well, onwards and upwards to a new year. And if you sing "Auld Lang Syne" - this is becoming an annual reminder - don't pronounce it "Zyne"! Just sing it like "sign". It means "since" or "then" - "old times long since". Not zince. 

Happy New Year to all readers, whether lurkers or commenters. Let's hope that 2022 is a better one! Please!
 

Ding dong fairly merrily

Yesterday we went up to see Son and family, through thick mist and light rain - not ideal driving conditions. Here we are going over the Queensferry Crossing. 

And we went for a muddy walk (or, in the children's case, cycle) through woodland which had suffered considerably in Storm Arwen, a few weeks ago.

And it was lovely to be with them. With this Omicron Covid and impending restrictions, I'm not sure when we'll see them again. They're supposed to be coming down for New Year but ... hmm. 

Still, it's Christmas, and while it's not the best Christmas ever, we'll see the Edinburgh family tomorrow so we shouldn't really complain. Especially as something really tragic happened to one family in Son's tiny village, a few days ago. I won't go into details so as not to spoil your Christmas but let's say it's made me grateful for my blessings. 

So happy Christmas and (when have I written this before???) let's hope for better things in the New Year. Surely? 

 

Awake

It's 3.13am. I haven't been asleep and am wide awake. I've tried reading; I've tried getting up and having a cup of tea; I've been listening to the radio on headphones - why is there nothing soothing on during the night? - and now I've got up again. There's no particular reason for my sleeplessness. I've never been a good sleeper but can usually drop off eventually, though always have periods of wakefulness as well. 

So I'm in the study, doing this. I know that screens aren't supposed to induce sleep but one has to do something. 

It doesn't help that I have to get up fairly early to go to the supermarket and was lying thinking that I must get to sleep. But the mind churns on. 

The Edinburgh family have all had a terrible cold but we've all been PCRd and it's not Covid, just a bad cold. 

We did, however, go to the Botanics on Sunday for some fresh air where we couldn't infect anyone. 

But generally there's nothing much happening. We're all holding our breath to see where the pandemic is going this time. This is our dining room - the Christmas stained glass tree box is underneath the lamp, the penguins are sitting in a row in front of the television, cards from the grandchildren are on display and various Christmas preparations are going ahead. We've been assured that things aren't exactly going to be cancelled before Christmas but then after that... well, they're not saying. 

Daughter 2 and family are supposed to be going to Center Parcs on Thursday to spend Christmas with her in-laws. Her sister-in-law and family, who live in Norway, are now in Britain, have passed their PCR tests and are ready to join them. Will Center Parcs stay open for the full week? Will Daughter 2 and her little one get up to Edinburgh to spend New Year with us? Will Son and family be allowed to join us? Ho hum.

Daughter 2 and her husband, having sold their flat in London, have now had an offer tentatively accepted on a house. In Scotland, you offer to buy a house and if your offer is accepted, that's it. Surveys have already been done, the solicitor is instructed and things trundle ahead. But in England it's all much slower and things can easily go wrong. For example, the sellers aren't taking the house off the market until Daughter 2's buyer has done the search and survey. Which he's now started to do, but on the other hand it's Christmas so nothing will happen. Meanwhile someone else might offer for the house that Daughter 2 wants. So... Hmm. 

Meanwhile we had the Edinburgh family round and we played Ludo. I can remember playing Ludo with one of my grannies - the one I hardly knew because she went to Cheltenham, quite far south in England, when I was four or five. But on this occasion she was visiting us - a very rare occurrence - and my brother was ill in bed, and we sat on the bed and played Ludo. I don't really remember much else about that granny, which is quite sad. 

Now it's 3.35am and though I'm still not in the least sleepy, I've got to that stage of feeling stupid and am making lots of typing mistakes. Back to bed. I really must get some sleep.

It's not really beginning to feel a lot like Christmas

This isn't the worst thing that's happening in the world but it's slightly tedious. 

In May, we ordered loose covers for two sofas and a footstool. A chap came and measured up and then we waited a long time - till September - because the fabric we'd chosen was out of stock. But then a lady came and fitted it, and it was all fine except the footstool. She tugged the cover down and then she went away and it sprang up again and was like this. 

So we phoned up and she came back and agreed that it was too short, and she took it away - and that was still September. 

And today - 17 December - another cover or perhaps the altered cover arrived by post and it was like this. Much too long. Now, I could possibly shorten it myself but a) my sewing machine works pretty well on quilting cotton but I think it might have a hairy fit if asked to sew through two layers of this thick velvety fabric and b) I would have to find thread of exactly the right colour and c) we paid a lot of money to have a properly-fitting cover. 

Sigh. 

Anyway and more importantly, we're also being overwhelmed by a tidal wave of the Omicron variant of Covid - or at least they're threatening that we're about to be - so everything's cancelled. My two choir concerts, tonight and tomorrow, and of course everyone else's stuff too. Which is also a bit tedious. We and all our family (the adults) are triple-jabbed so presumably fairly protected, but the Great Unjabbed are expected to be filling up the hospitals and infecting the rest of us, so... Sigh again. 

The governments probably don't dare shut things down before Christmas so that's going ahead, at least to some extent, though whether it'll be wise for Daughter 2 and Littlest to come up for New Year as planned, only the heavens know (and they're not telling). 

 Still, at least there's sewing. I've finished the bunk bed quilt top number 1. Now to spend some weeks happily quilting it while deciding what design to use on the second quilt. 

And we're very lucky compared to many people in the world so... hey ho. 

(Big Granddaughter, who has a terrible cold-that-definitely-isn't Covid: Can you pass me a tissue? My nose is PHENOMENALLY snotty.

Quite a good vocabulary for 8, though perhaps a little too much information.)

Snow globe world

Someone sent us this Christmas card today and it appealed to me. Wouldn't life be simple, I thought, if we could all live there? Everyone seems to have a nice, detached, tidy-looking house. All the village people are cheerfully assembled round a neat tree to sing carols. There's a very well-built snowman. The snow that's falling is soft and downy and no one seems bothered by it, possibly because there's no traffic and they've just come out of a warm church and are about to go to their warm homes. True, there's a rather higher proportion of dogs to people than I would ideally prefer, and no visible cats, but the latter are presumably curled up in front of cosy fires in those pretty houses. And isn't everyone enviably thin? 

Granted, the church has been rather oddly positioned right against the fence; and the red door above the snow-covered roof of the church seems to be hovering in mid-air. And the houses have no front gardens and don't look as if they have very big back ones, and these tall, thin houses must have a lot of stairs to vacuum. But still. I feel it would be a nice place to live - and even nicer in summer. 

Back in the real world, the Omicron variant of Covid is looking horribly as if it's going to pitch us back to the nastiness of 2020/early 2021. Already just in the past couple of days, Littlest Granddaughter and Daughter 2 in London have taken PCR tests because Littlest has a cold and cough, and there are five positive Covid cases in her nursery, though not in her particular section of it. Daughter 2 asked diagnostically this morning if Littlest's breakfast tasted funny. Litttlest said yes, part of her toast tasted of rabbits and the other part of hedgehogs. 

Their tests were negative, but Daughter and Son-in-Law 2 are going to keep Littlest off anyway so that she doesn't get Covid (they hope). They're supposed to be going to Center Parcs to spend Christmas with SIL 2's parents and his sister and family, and they can't risk not being able to go. Unless, of course, everything has closed down by then, which is presumably not impossible. Meanwhile they face working at home aided by a four-year-old. 

And today, Biggest Granddaughter, who's been getting over a cold, was sent home from school because she was coughing. She's taken a test but they haven't yet got the results, but it means that the four of them have to isolate meantime. We're all pretty sure it's just a cold, as we were with Littlest, but of course there's no way of being absolutely sure till the test comes back.  

O me miserum! Though of course it's not really that bad. Just very very tedious after we all thought that we were coming out of - if not the end of it, at least the middlish part of it. The beginning of the end, the end of the beginning... what is the situation really, I wonder?

I bet there's no Covid in that snowy village.

Ah well, on with the Christmas preparations.

Back

Well, I got down to London and saw this little person and her mum and dad. Which was lovely. And now I'm back. 

While I was away, I marvelled at Daughter 2's organised way of storing Lego. 

And, at the Museum of the Home, at William Morris's high standards for chaps. 

Daughter 2 decorated her mantelpiece

and her fairly enormous tree. 

And Littlest Granddaughter practised lots of leaping off the sofa.

Daughter 2 and her husband have (theoretically, at least) sold their flat and are trying to buy a house. Even in the outer suburb that they live in, you get very little house in London for a vast sum of money, the sort of sum that even in expensive Edinburgh would buy you a nice four-bed, two-public, two-bathroom in a good area. Not in London, though. There are lots of people all after the same eye-wateringly expensive small houses. It's very sad. I always feel sad when I part from them, but even more when they're spending so much time looking at houses and not succeeding in getting anything. Daughter 2, being an architect, doesn't just vaguely think where they could put the furniture, like most people, but draws out the floor plans of the houses they see and thinks how she could improve them. So far, however, there's not been an opportunity to put her ideas into action. 

I find London very stressful - so busy, so enormous, so many people that you see momentarily and never again. I had coffee with a friend on Wednesday and it took me an hour and 25 minutes to get to where we were meeting. (Fortunately I'd left an hour and a half for the journey.) It just takes so long to get anywhere. I find tube travel very nerve-racking, too - I hate being underground. I so wish they weren't living there. But they are, and will continue to do so.

Moan, moan, moan. I'm trying hard to count my blessings... .

 

Try again...

The latest quilt is coming on slowly. It's perhaps a bit feebly simple, though I may not think so once I'm joining the rows and battling to make the seams meet neatly. And I do like the colours. Now I'm going to abandon it in the renewed attempt to get down to London to visit Daughter 2 and family tomorrow. 

It was very chilly on our walk today, though, and snow is forecast. Not on the line down south, please, weatherman! I just want to get there without incident. London is having tube strikes, too - which I should miss, hopefully - they seem to be at night at the moment. Which is just as well: I know how to get to Daughter 2's from King's Cross, but only by tube and then bus. Otherwise - no clue! Keep your fingers crossed for me... . 

 

The best laid plans...

This is my suitcase, packed to go down to London on the train last Saturday for my visit to Daughter 2 and Littlest Granddaughter.

Then Friday night was very stormy; and power cables came down between here and further south. All trains were cancelled and indeed remain so today. So I couldn't go - a small problem compared with other events in the world, but disappointing. 

The particularly trying thing is that I usually go down on a Friday, but didn't this time, for reasons which seemed more important then than they do now. If I had, I'd be there at the moment. 

And then, which didn't improve matters, it snowed - as had been forecast. Not much, and most of it has gone now, but it's jolly cold. Of course, it's winter, so this is reasonable enough. 

In addition to which, Daughter 2 and her husband have sold their London flat (or, as much as the strange English system allows them to consider it sold - it could still fall through) and are looking for a house. It's astonishing, and very depressing, how much house you don't get in London for your ridiculously large sum of money. So that's very stressful. I think I'm more stressed about it than they are, in fact. 

First world problems, I know. But I'm feeling somewhat bah humbug right now. I shall go and do something useful to try to cheer myself up. 

 

Travels

On Saturday we went walking. My sore leg hurt but it's amazing how this doesn't matter too much when you're tramping through lovely countryside with lovely friends. And after 5 miles, it didn't hurt appreciably more than it does pottering round the house, which is good. 

 

On Sunday we took the Edinburgh Two up to see the Angus Two. They are adorable. 

Here are Biggest and Medium Granddaughters, crafting on the floor. Though they don't see each other  often, they get on very well. 

Here are the three oldest ones walking up the hill. Little Grandson was there too, but he was holding his daddy's hand. 

Son decided to climb a tree, causing his mother some anxiety. 

Home again, I picked a little bunch of flowers from the garden. We've had very mild weather with no frost but I think it's due to get colder. 

On Saturday I'm going down to London to visit Daughter 2 and her husband and little one. I'm looking forward to it, but hope that I don't sit beside someone Covidy on the train. In Scotland we have to wear masks on public transport, but once we cross the border, the masks could come off. Hmm. Fingers crosssed!

 

Collecting

I've been having a happy time choosing fabrics from my stash. I have quite a lot of fat quarters and other material but it does all fit in one smallish cupboard. Nevertheless I have no chance, at my age, of ever using it all up.

I've been doing this. It's very simple but soothing. 

Occasionally, of course, the mind wanders and this happens. Oops. 

It'll probably become less easy when I start joining the blocks together and find that they don't meet at exactly the right places. Still, I'll get them to meet. And very few people will ever see the quilt, anyway. 

I should really try something more challenging but don't at the moment feel like being challenged. The quilt is just for one of the bunks that we put in the study for the rare occasions when all of our distant grandchildren visit at the same time. Then after this I'll make a quilt for the other bunk. In the same fabrics, I think, but a different design, as yet to be decided. 

Mr L brings me a cup of tea in the mornings (lucky me) and I've developed a habit, as I drink it, of looking at my phone, which often offers me, on Facebook, an extract from an American programme about extreme hoarders. I watch this with horrified pity. I had always imagined that hoarders kept piles of newspapers or shoes or something, but these poor souls keep everything: household items in huge quantities, more clothes than anyone could ever wear but also unwashed dinner plates, half-eaten takeaway meals, fridges full of out-of-date food... . Often the men have multiple decrepit vehicles in their gardens that they plan to (but never will) renovate and sell. 

Then teams come in and help them sort their stuff, throw away the junk and clean and redecorate their houses. But it's obviously deeply painful for the hoarders to discard things, even obviously ruined items. And will they be able to keep themselves from filling their houses all over again? 

I'm so sorry for them - living in crowded and dirty houses and unable to stop accumulating more and more stuff. I like pictures and glass, but it's all arranged tidily. And dusted. Though of course there's the fabric stash... .

Isn't the human mind remarkable? - in both a good and a bad way. 

 

The maturing sun

I am absolutely not saying that global warming is a good thing, but its effects on Scotland are not altogether unpleasant. The weather is still mild (unlike the cold Novembers of my youth) and there's been some lovely sunshine. On Saturday we went up the hill, 

looking across at the golfers on the course where we had such wonderful rambles during lockdown.

The sunshine makes the colours zing.

And having panted up, we rewarded ourselves with a sit on the convenient bench at the top, looking down over the golf course and the city. 

And then we proceeded down the other side

and further down to the road.

There was a rugby match on at Murrayfield, and many buses, some from surprisingly distant places, were parked along the main road . This one, from Friockheim, not too far away from where Son lives, has the pronunciation of its village (Free-come) helpfully printed on the side. 

I've started a quilt for one of the bunks that we've installed in our study for the few occasions when we'll have all the family together. 

The other morning I was sitting having an early breakfast and happened to glance over my shoulder out of the kitchen window. This is what I saw. A minute or two later I went to the front door to get a better photo but the sun had moved slightly and the sight wasn't quite so striking. 

Complete tangent - this (above) was in the Sunday Times yesterday. I definitely don't have any of the ingredients in my fridge. Does anyone? And what are those orange things that look like tinned peaches? 

Yesterday it was still mild but less sunny and we walked with the Edinburgh family in Leith, along the river. 

We're lucky to see so much of these small people - not actually so small nowadays. Big Grandson only has a few inches to go before he's taller than me - and I can already wear his shoes. Stop growing, little N!

Today it was glorious again. But it's already the middle of November, oh dear.