Things come in fives...

 
This was a more domestic week. On Monday the two sisters, and the sister-in-law, of the husband of my American second (or something) cousin who came to stay with us a couple of months ago - are you following this? - visited Edinburgh briefly en route for a cruise ship, so I gave them a walking tour of the city and then they came back here for dinner. So that was very nice. Their cruise goes to Orkney, Norway, the Faroe Islands and Iceland, which sounds lovely. The only snag might be the weather, which in Britain at least has been, on and off, very rainy this week. On Monday it was only very briefly, but torrentially, wet. We had just left the cafe at Holyrood Palace and immediately decided that another cup of coffee would be very welcome - back in the cafe. 

Other than that, there's been some coffeeing with friends, some lunching with friends, some being with the grandchildren - that sort of thing. Yesterday we took the Edinburgh Two up to see the Unbloggables, which was lovely (and not wet, or only a tiny bit). 

Son lives in the country, in a scenic but (for us) inconvenient area. Still, I can see the appeal. If my life were different, I too would like to live in the country. At least in the summer. 

Only one of the children sat down in the water. 

Their bloggable cat, in catmint (I think). 

Since we got back from being away, we've had a series of minorish, but tedious, problems.

1) While Mr L was still in Hamburg, I found a dead rat in the back garden! Now, firstly, a rat! and secondly, I don't deal with dead things. I'm a vegetarian and very squeamish. However, I had to deal with it. Please applaud. 

2) Also while Mr L was in Hamburg, I looked up at the bedroom ceiling - the fairly newly decorated bedroom ceiling - and there was a damp patch, clearly a leak. The roofer has now fixed the leak, at least we hope so. The brown patch remains to be dealt with.

3) The cord of the blind in a spare room broke. Mr L has fixed this. 

4) The dishwasher stopped working. It needs a new bit, which a dishwasher chap is going to get for us. Let's hope.

5) We have two skylights in our kitchen, made out of some sort of plastic. This is one of them. A huge brown ... splodge? burn? who knows what? - not us ... has suddenly appeared on it. It's as if an ostrich had been flying overhead and done something unmentionable on it. However, the very heavy rain of the last few days has had no effect. We can't imagine what it is. We are no longer willing to climb on roofs to investigate, so contacted a handyman who we've used before. Sadly, he's about to go on holiday and can't come and look at it till late in August. Could it be a burn? We don't get aeroplanes flying above us as a rule, though we do get the occasional helicopter nearby. Do flying vehicles drop hot things? 

Oh well, these are all minor things compared to the disasters suffered by many people in the world and no doubt something will be able to be done about it in due course. But that's enough little problems, thank you, world, for the moment.