Friday, July 25, 2025
Summer's lease
Thursday, July 17, 2025
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.
Thursday, July 10, 2025
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.
Thursday, July 03, 2025
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...