Stravaiging

Our daughters and their families were with the other grandparents for Christmas this year - our son lives at a distance and doesn't have much time off, so we never see him on the actual day - so we were all by ourselves... violins. It was... peaceful. It would have been a bit pathetic if we'd not had each other. But we did. 

A couple of days before, we walked in the Botanics. 

Here's my favourite tree, the bald cypress. It is indeed bald at this time of year, but it's beautiful once it gets its leaves back. Here's my favourite old chap standing beside it. 

There were also what I'm choosing to regard as signs of spring. 

Or possibly autumn...

No, spring. 

I've had a terrible cough over the festive season, so in a first for him, Mr L marzipanned and then iced the Christmas cake!!! I didn't want to spread my germs on it. 

Look, artistry. 

Yesterday we felt like a change of scene, so instead of walking locally we took a bus up town and wandered about a bit. This is the Castle from a slightly unusual angle. 

This is the Grassmarket which, when we were young, was a disreputable place full of chaps down on their luck and too fond of the bottle, but which is now quite trendy.

Climbing up the Vennel steps.

Looking down them at the Castle. They've, bizarrely, become a tourist attraction because of influencers who take pictures of them at night in the rain. I would not myself want to climb them at night in the rain. You see a lot of atmospheric photos of wet Edinburgh on the internet. It does look quite shiny but it gives the impression that Edinburgh is particularly wet (it isn't) and that walking around in the rain, in winter, is fun. (It isn't. Edinburgh is also quite windy.)

Here's a bit of the Flodden Wall at the top of the Vennel. The wall was built in the early 1500s. See the arrow slits for shooting at invaders. Most of the wall is no longer in existence. Likewise the invaders, I hope. 

For the first time in my life, I've just this minute wondered what "vennel" means, and according to the internet, it's a narrow passageway between buildings (Scots English). Which is accurate in this case, though it doesn't explain why in Edinburgh, full of vennels as it is, this is the only one called that. 

Here's an example of incongruity along by the Meadows. No one can afford to build buildings with twiddly bits any more because builders are well paid, unlike in the past. Which is good. But I do like twiddly bits. 

Bits of the town were thronged with tourists, following along behind tour leaders who were telling them stuff about Harry Potter and Greyfriar's Bobby. Why were they here in December, on Boxing Day, instead of at their own firesides or perhaps sunning themselves in their gardens in the sunny climes they may come from? 

Then we walked down the Mound to the bus stop, struggling through crowds waiting at the bottom of the hill for the Christmas markets to open at 11am. 

In all this spare time, I finished quilting the 104 butterflies on the border of the rainbow quilt for Littlest Granddaughter. I was quite glad not to have to do 105. Now for the binding. I don't really like binding, or not the machining bit. Wish me luck. 

And Happy New Year when it comes. Surely the world will have sorted itself out by next December? One can only hope.