Family activities

And talking of bears, I came across this one. He was my mother's so I suppose he's 100 years old, or nearly. My mum would have been 100 on May 9th, though in fact she only made it to 90. Teddy (his name; not very original but there we are) is a bit worse for wear but nevertheless is going to see me out, never mind Mum. Hmm. Life is fleeting etc. 

Mr L is away for a few days in Wales with some chums who like railways, helping at a beer festival in aid of the Welsh Highland Railway Society. No, he's not Welsh, but he likes Wales and their narrow gauge railways. I've been doing quite a lot of gardening in his absence. One has more time when one doesn't have to cook. Mind you, I'm looking forward to his return in a couple of days. 

Here are the Edinburgh Two yesterday, playing in a slightly ironic way (but they enjoyed it) with the Duplo that we got out for their little cousins. Earlier, Big Grandson was lying on the floor, drawing in his sketchbook. "Ah," he said contentedly, "it's all about the chilling..."

Today I went to the Botanics, not without difficulty since Edinburgh is as usual being dug up and I encountered two sets of temporary traffic lights with big queues. And then when I got there, the gardens were closed because of high winds. It is, granted, windy, but not that windy, I'd have thought. 

So I went for a walk in Inverleith Park and then down to Stockbridge to have the coffee that I'd been planning to enjoy at the Botanics. 

It was fine but the view wasn't very Botanical. 

Meanwhile, in London, Littlest Granddaughter had her lunch in a tent

while her parents put up some curtains. They've been curtainless ever since they moved in - there were no curtain rails, which was the problem. And now, hurray. 

I

n the paper today there was a retrospective on the first professional performance of Joseph And The  Amazing Techicolour Dreamcoat, fifty years ago this summer. Reader - the chap and I were there at the ice rink. We thought it was very good and the people behind it might go somewhere. And they did. 

Old? As the Queen said recently, you're as old as you feel. I'm not entirely sure she's right, but let's go with it. 

Right, now, off out to the garden again. Annoyingly, it keeps raining for just long enough for me to decide I'm getting wet, and come in, and then it immediately stops; by which time I've started doing something else. Such as this. 

(Hello to Andrew Maclaren-Scott, by the way. How nice to hear from you. I hope you didn't try to go to the Botanics today... And to Suzi - sorry, don't know how to sign in to Google to comment on your blog, but hello anyway. That's a very big dog you have!)