Abundance

There's been lots of sunny weather, but it's also been quite windy. I do love verbena bonariensis when it sways in the breeze, though. Goodness, but it seeds itself around, and it's hard to throw away healthy seedlings. 

This perennial sweet pea also seeds itself, and one of its seedlings grew into this differently-coloured version, which I've never seen anywhere else, and like a lot. 

Otherwise, lilies, phlox and the thuglike but pretty Japanese anemones bloom enthusiastically on. 

Littlest Granddaughter at Kings Cross Station in London, on her way to see us (not alone!).

This is a very visitory time of year for us. Littlest Granddaughter's guinea pigs have been with us for a few weeks now while their owners were in France. Nephew, a musician, is staying while he appears in the Fringe Festival during August. Daughter 2 and Littlest Granddaughter are here for help with childminding while Daughter 2 works; Son-in-Law 2 also appears in the Fringe for most of the month.  

Son, Small Grandson and Medium Granddaughter came for a couple of days. They liked the guinea pigs. Medium is 9 today. 

 Then our nephew's fiancee arrives on Saturday and my brother and his wife next Thursday. So it's really lovely, but maybe a trifle chaotic. But what's a bit of chaos, in a family house? I feel very lucky to have them all around.  


 

Antisyzygy

While awful things happen in the world, and Mr Trump is visiting Scotland and costing us vast sums in policing, things proceed placidly in our little corner. The guinea pigs are well, as far as we can tell. Not off their food, anyway. 

We visited the Botanics, as so often, and admired their little wildflower bit. I love cornflowers. I used to grow them as a child. My parents gave me a little bit of garden and I grew cornflowers, candytuft, Virginian stocks, nasturtiums, clarkia. I always loved flowers, even as a small child. I think I was quite solitary - I had an older brother, who was (is) nice, but I remember wandering contentedly round the garden, smelling lilacs and admiring the way that raindrops shone like jewels on lupin leaves. 

I really like this fluffy, droopy chap. It's evidently:

Quite tempted to get some, though where I would put it...

Here's my favourite old chap by my favourite tree, which is: 

or the bald cypress - very rude. It sheds its leaves in winter. Definitely haven't got room for one of those in my garden, but in my next life, when I'm rich, I shall definitely have one on my estate. 

Meanwhile, Daughter 2 and Littlest Granddaughter are in France, with friends, while Son-in-Law 2 is up in Edinburgh with his theatre group. 

I've pieced together the back of the rainbow quilt from a duvet cover and odd bits, 

and we visited Son and family on a lovely Dundee day. There are squirty things on the promenade along the river front. I wouldn't mind having a go myself, but it would have been undignified to get that wet. 

 And now Nephew is with us to perform in the Fringe, while we await Daughter 2 and Littlest on Monday. The fun begins!

I learned a new word today from the newspaper: antisyzygy. It tends to be a Scottish thing (Caledonian antisyzygy) evidently, meaning dualling polarities within a single entity. Jekyll and Hyde, New Town and Old Town, Scottish but British. Sounds most uncomfortable.  

Summer's lease

It's a very fragrant time in my garden. Trachelospermum jasminoides climbs the trellis outside the sitting room patio doors. Son gave me this plant, years ago, and I think of him every time I see or smell it. 

Then there are lilies, 

and nicotiana. I'd never grown these till last year and I love them - why did I never grow them before? They have the tiniest seeds - dust, merely - and grow into these large plants. Isn't nature amazing? My lovely granny used to say - "All this, from one tiny seed!" and I agree. She was talking about cabbages, but the same applies to anything, really. 

And then phlox

and night-scented stocks - headily fragrant. 

 

Daughter 2, her husband and Littlest Granddaughter paid a flying visit so that the parents could go to a wedding. They brought back some flowers from the venue: a slightly odd, but lovely, mixture of alliums, delphiniums, snapdragons, roses and campanula.

Littlest and I played with tiny ducks - among other things. 

Another day, Mr L and I took the big grandchildren to the Glasgow Science Museum. They're now 12 and 14, and interact differently with the installations compared to how they did last time, several years ago. 

The London family brought their guinea pigs with them, and left them with us because the family is coming back in a week or two for all of August. 

We used to have guinea pigs when our children were small. They're cute. Very squeaky. The children were also cute. Ah, to be young again. Still, being old isn't so bad, though my arm still hurts a lot, some days. I'd be better resting it, maybe. But I don't. That would be boring. 

 

Using one's arms

We visited Mansfield Traquair Church the other day - or, it used to be a church. Now it's a venue, rented out to make money so that Phoebe Anna Traquair's murals can be preserved. It was once a Catholic Apostolic church, built in the late 1800s, so it's not old, but this artist was hired to paint the walls and some parts of the ceiling. So of course it's known as Edinburgh's Sistine Chapel, which is a bit of an exaggeration, but it's an amazing feat for a lady, then, climbing around on scaffolding. 

It's really quite high!

Here she is. She did various forms of art, including embroidery, watercolours, book cover tooling, illuminated manuscripts and enamelling. I think she must have had staff to do the childminding and housework. 

So that's about it apart from the normal gardening, socialising and sewing. I've got a trapped nerve (or something) in my shoulder, which is rather painful and, I suspect, not helped by being hunched over a sewing machine (or indeed ripping out stitches, another too-frequent occupation...). I imagine typing doesn't help either. Ah, woe is me. I'm sure it'll get better, but it's taking its time. 

Son and family are on holiday and having fun. This is Scotland, not the Riviera, so they have wetsuits on. 

 

Colours and scents

 Ah, Blogger has uploaded my photos backwards again. Still, never mind. 

 

Today we took the Edinburgh Two to Lauriston Castle, a big house (with a medieval tower house incorporated) in lovely gardens, given to the city by its last inhabitants. Look at the length of Big Grandson's hair! It's very nice hair, but I'm not too keen on its length. However, it will eventually get cut. I hope. 

It was a beautiful day and they're such good company. A croquet club meets in the grounds. 

You can see over the water to Fife. 

I've finished my rainbow quilt top. I didn't design it, but copied it from a photo that I saw somewhere or other on the internet. Well done to the designer. My brain could never have thought that up. It was fun to do, but I still don't like orange. I've still to put a border on it, piece together the back (much less elaborately than the front) and quilt it, so there's a long way to go. 

It's been warm, and the doors and windows have been open a lot, and the garden smells divine, especially at night. I've planted night scented stocks and nicotiana - what a lovely scent. 

This astilbe hasn't got any scent but I love the colour - however, the thalictrum has, after many years, suddenly taken off and entangled itself among several other plants. My day lilies have also gone rogue. I shall have to Take Steps. 

This clematis is doing well. 

And, back to scent, this trachelospermum jasminoides, just outside the patio doors, fills the house with perfume. Son gave me it, years ago. 

And here again are the night scented stock, nicotiana and (unscented) cornflowers, all annuals. The others have somewhat overwhelmed the cornflowers, but hey ho. 

In a few months, I'll have to cut it all down. I'm getting a bit old for this... 75 last birthday, which was July 4. Hope you celebrated it in style, Americans. 

Out and aboutery

Life continues - thankfully - and the garden blooms. 

We went for a walk through The Meadows the other day. The Meadows is a big park in central Edinburgh, but it was once, yes, a meadow, where sheep grazed. My grandfather grew up nearby, in a tenement flat, and used to play football here. Nowadays it's often full of students, since this is the student area. We'd never actually walked along this particular path before, and it was quite interesting seeing The Meadows from this angle. 

It's obvious that the tenement-dwellers who live around here still see it as their garden. 

There are some new student flats overlooking this path, and we liked Professor Polar Bear, keeping an eye on his territory. His mortar board has slipped somewhat. 

There's a little community garden. It's all rather nice.

Yesterday, we went up to visit Son and family. The journey was fairly horrible: it was raining, and there were quite a few lorries throwing up spray. I'm very phobic on motorways and never expect us to get to our destination alive. However, we did. On this occasion. 

Because of the weather, we went to a play place. Spectators have to sign a waiver, I suppose in case they decide to have a go on the equipment, injure themselves and sue. The girl in charge told Mr Life and me that we needed to sign the waiver, and then she hesitated, looked at us and said, "Oh, don't bother. I'll trust you not to go on the equipment. " What could she have been implying??? 

Mind you, Son did have a go...

 

Ho hum

Life has been a bit trying lately, mainly because of one of my choirs, the one of which I'm chair. Basically, our treasurer has taken offence at our musical director, for reasons which seem totally bewildering to me, and has resigned. Treasurers are valuable people, so we've all been falling over backwards to please him. However, he's thrown his toys out of the pram, and gone. This isn't as bad as it might be, because his 3-year term of office was to be up in October anyway, and we have - or at least I hope we still have - a new treasurer lined up. But it's been very stressful and unpleasant and surprising. In my peaceful retired life, I'd kind of forgotten about difficult people who throw strops. 

I'm meeting with the new (I hope) treasurer on Thursday. I just hope that the toy-thrower hasn't put him off joining us on the committee. 

Ah well, we can still walk along the river and watch this heron, 

and admire the meadowsweet and knapweed,

which grow happily despite everything. 

Daughter 2 has been home for a few days because her lovely friend, the owner of the very small architecture firm near Edinburgh for which she works in London, has died of a brain tumour, which is not only very sad but has also been very difficult for the rest of them in various ways. 

I shouldn't feel sorry for myself, because he was eight years younger than me and is no longer around, and I'm still quite well, as far as I know. But I always feel so sad when Daughter 2 goes away. (Yes, I know, she could be in Australia.) I'm worried about her and for them all. But one just has to buck up and be grateful for what one has. 

I've been doing Duolingo for French and German for a couple of years now. My French was always reasonable, though my German was pretty feeble, and I suppose they've both been polished up a bit. On a whim, the other day, I started learning Duolingo Scottish Gaelic. When I was at teacher training college - which I found somewhat boring compared to university - my dad and I went to Gaelic classes for a couple of terms, and bits are coming back to me. I haven't got very far yet, as you can imagine, but am enjoying the spelling. For example, I could ask for "ti" and "cofaidh" (tea and coffee, pronounced "tea" and "coffee") and say that "tha tidsear" (I'm a teacher - pronounced "ha teacher"). I haven't got to the past tense yet... I also like "tioraidh" (pronounced "cheery" and meaning "goodbye"), as in "cheerio".  Is that a British thing, or do Americans/Canadians/Australians/New Zealanders say "cheerio" for goodbye? 

It's not all as easy as that (mind you, the spelling isn't easy at all), but one takes one's pleasures where one can.