Bubbles

And just like that, they're gone. August passed pleasantly but busily, with child-minding and visiting family and cooking and so on. 

I took Littlest Granddaughter to a bubble show at the Festival Fringe - which was very good - and we bought some of the chap's excellent bubbles. 

On the way home, she found one of her dad's company's posters, and kissed the little picture of her dad. I'm sure this was totally hygienic.

One day we went to the Botanics. 

On Sunday the Edinburgh family came and played with the bubbles. 

And now Daughter 2 and family have gone back to London and we have our time to ourselves and can't think what to do because we're too sad. However, the garden has been neglected so I'll get back to that. 

Ah well. We'll recover a bit in due course. Countyourblessingscountyourblessingscountyourblessings. 

 

Visiting

The house has continued to be quite full - Littlest Granddaughter and Daughter 2 are still here, as are Nephew and his young lady, though the latter two go back down south tomorrow. Brother and SIL departed today. So it's all been very nice, though the house could not be said to have been its tidiest. 

Momentously, Big Grandson has started high school! - he who was a small baby about (it seems) two years ago. So far, three days in, he likes it very much, so this is good. He's a clever chap and I'm sure he'll do well; I just hope that Big Boys aren't nasty to him!

Littlest Granddaughter has been looked after two days a week by her dad, one day by her mum and two days by me (while they worked), so it's been fine. 

One day we went to the museum, where she contemplated the Whirlpool Galaxy which, according to this display, is between 13 and 30 million light years away. I think she mainly enjoyed turning the dials rather than contemplating the hugeness of space. But I thought about it for a bit, before my brain melted and we went for the bus. 

Today, my brother and his wife went home, my nephew and his fiancée were out and Daughter 2 and her little one went up to visit Son and family overnight, so Mr L and I went walking with our rambling chums in East Lothian, from East Linton and round Binning Wood. It was such a great day. 

The weather was pleasantly, but not too, warm.

It was a bit windy, but the trees broke up the gusts. 

And in Binning Wood, which is a green burial site, we thought about our mortality for a while and then went to have coffee in the local garden centre while we still could. My hip was rather sore. But it's much better now, after a sit-down. 

Up north, Daughter 2, Son and their children fished for tadpoles. 

Our house is currently and not unpleasantly quiet. And marginally tidier than it was earlier. 

 

Nothing to report

There is nothing particular to report: much providing of meals, much clutter, many shoes in the hall, various outings - it's been fun, and things have happened and photos have been taken, but mostly unbloggable ones. The grandchildren are currently out doing an art afternoon at the gallery and the house is quiet. (And untidy. But that doesn't matter.)

How I envy friends whose children and thus grandchildren have stayed near them. I love having them, but it would be so much easier if they visited, say, on a Sunday, saw one another all the time and we didn't have to worry about allocating beds, whether they would get to sleep (and to stay asleep) in an unusual location, and the intense excitement of seeing their cousins after a long gap. Still, life's not like that; and if offspring marry someone from a different place then they obviously can't live near both sets of grandparents. We're lucky to have one lot quite near. 

One can't have everything. And we have a lot. 

Here be dragons

On Saturday, Son, Daughter-in-Law and their two arrive for about a week, and on Sunday, Daughter 2 and her little one arrive for three weeks. In the middle of August, my brother, sister-in-law and nephew and his fiancée will be here for about a week also. This is obviously all very nice, but will be busy, so I've been getting Big Granddaughter's dragon quilt to the stage of being pinned together, ready for hand-quilting, so that the fabrics and sewing machine could be tidied away. I was about to go up town to buy wadding the other day but thought I should just check that the odd bits I had wouldn't be enough to cobble together. And the first photo shows an arrangement of every last bit I had!

So, with saving the planet - not to say our bank account - in mind, I crawled around the floor for some considerable time and sewed it all together. I hope the planet appreciates this. My knees weren't so sure. 

I'd already done the front, but I had the back to make, patching it together the back because surely no one else I know will want dragon fabric. (Obviously it needed a bit of a trim. And an iron.) Apart from dragons, the back mainly features books because she's a total bookworm. 

It's all embarrassingly simple but she's only ten and now it's done. And it was fun to do. 

And then I packed all the fabrics away. Mine are arranged in categories: plain, stripes, spots, checks, animals and birds, flowers and leaves, Christmas, and then whatever doesn't fit any of these descriptions. I did once try arranging them by colour but too many of them had multiple colours. And anyway, I always seem to end up riffling through them all to find just the right thing. I need a bigger cupboard but - no - that way would madness lie. I will never use up all that I have. 

It's been very wet in Britain generally, but the rain cleared yesterday and we went out for a walk along the river. 

It was very full. 

Today the sun shone so I hope that's us back to normal summer weather. Not sure that it is, though... .