Home and away

Nothing much happening around here, thank goodness. Unlike in the US and other places. Shudder. Above, Littlest Granddaughter in London decided to have a birthday party for one of her guinea pigs, and to invite four friends. Here she is, making up the party bags. She has two other guinea pigs, so let's see what she decides about their birthdays (we think they're actually from the same litter). The party went well, with everyone entering into the slightly bonkers spirit of the occasion. 

We walked along the river on a sunny day. 

Then we climbed the steps to the gallery, where we had coffee

after which we walked through the front garden of the gallery, with its Landform, and home. 

Mr L has decided that he would like a quilt made from his old shirts, which I've been collecting for some time because you never know when you might need a bit of fabric. 

This is all I've done so far - other busyness has intervened. It's wonky because soft, much-washed fabric has a mind of its own; also, checked fabric shows no mercy. However, I'll put it at the bottom and once it's quilted it'll look fine. Or fine enough. 

Last Saturday, we went for a town walk with our walking chums. For some reason, these photos are in reverse order, but we ended up at Holyrood Park, having lunch in The King's Gallery. It was our oldest friend's 95th birthday! She is absolutely amazing - full of energy. It was only about 5 miles, but I was glad to sit down at the end, whereas she was still bouncing around. You should see her going up hills! Whizz. 

Before this, we walked along a street that I never knew existed, which was interesting. 

And before that, along an old railway line complete with its quite long tunnel, which was, though it doesn't look it here, a gentle slope up. I'm not a great fan of tunnels, especially uphill ones. 

And thus the quiet life continues, while deranged men far away decide that they want power over other people's countries. How have we allowed this to happen? 

I'm sitting listening to Mozart's Alma Dei Creatoris as I type, in preparation for singing it tonight at choir. This is very soothing. 

Art and such things

It's been a bit January-ish round here, with even some snow, so we've been doing indoory things as well as going on our usual walks. There was an exhibition of early Ikea fabrics at the Dovecot Gallery, so we went there. I can't say that I would particularly like any of these in my house, but they were interesting to look at. 

I didn't really like 1960s and 70s fashion even at the time.

Hmm, don't think so. 

Then, because it was on our way back, we popped into the museum to look at some things. Such as this, which I thought was a little house, but turns out to be an 8th century casket, possibly for holding saintly relics. 

Everybody likes the Lewis chessmen, made probably in Norway in the 1200s but discovered on the Isle of Lewis in 1831. 94 pieces were found, of which 82 of them reside in the British Museum in London (ho hum) and only 11 in the National Museum of Scotland. One is in private ownership. None of them is on Lewis, which is where they probably should be. 

Of course there's the one that lives on my desk (do you see his friend in the photo above?) but it's just possible that it might not be an original...

There are some lovely carved pieces rescued ... or at least taken.. from old buildings. This dates from about 1530. 

Then today the pavements were quite slippery in the morning so we went to the National Gallery (of Scotland). This is a 1915 sketch by Francis Cadell, called "The Parting". Isn't it wonderful how Cadell conveyed the sorrow felt by the woman as she waved her chap off to war? 

I think the light on this painting of the Scottish Highlands is fantastic - sun just poking out from between the clouds, as does happen occasionally here. It's by someone called Peter Graham, of whom I must confess I hadn't heard. Or at least the name hadn't stuck.  He lived from 1836 to 1921 - quite a long time. 

And here's an 1823 sketch by David Wilkie of a Greenwich Pensioner. Again, so much character in what might seem a basic drawing with very little use of colour. 

So many clever people. I'm glad their work has survived to keep them sort-of alive. 
 

Rainbows and sun

Well, at last the rainbow quilt is finished. I can claim no credit for the design, which was made up by someone much cleverer than I. But sadly I don't know who this was. The idea just came from a random photo on the internet, which I slavishly copied using fabrics that I (mainly) had. I did have to acquire some of the low volume ones, and Thimbleanna, my quilting guru, very kindly gave me some of these. 

It's really very simple compared to some of the wonderful creations one sees on the internet, but I'm not an ambitious quilter. And I only do some fairly basic hand quilting, but I enjoy this. Machine quilting can be lovely, but fiddling around with needle and thread while watching television is more my thing. 

I had to go against my principles to include orange (don't like orange) but rainbows do contain orange, so I put some in. Grudgingly. I much prefer blues and greens. It fits a single bed, and annoyingly, when it's put on a bed, the orange is quite prominent - just at the bend of the pillow. Ho hum. 

It's for Littlest Granddaughter. If she gets fed up of the rainbow colours she can always turn it over. 

It's the last day of the school holidays here and we went with the Edinburgh Two and their dad to the Botanics for a walk and lunch. It was a beautiful day but coooooold. 

This is how high the sun gets at midday here in mid-winter. Not very high! We had a lovely time with the family, though. So lucky to have them here. 
 

Quiet times...

Goodness, it's been quiet around here. We've gone various walks along by the golf course - unexciting, but it's nice to get out. What with our family being away and me having a prolonged throat infection and associated hacking cough, we've just read books and watched television and ... tara... done the binding on my rainbow quilt. 

I started off unbrilliantly by attaching it to the back instead of the front (you would think I'd never bound a quilt before!) but noticed myself doing this after a foot or so. After a bit of unpicking and teeth-grinding, I did it properly. Hurray. It took quite a while because it's big but it all went fine, no bunching or anything, so I was pleased. Now to hand-sew it to the back, which I quite enjoy. 

On Hogmanay we went over to Daughter 1's to bring in the New Year, which was lovely. And then yesterday, Daughter 1 and family, plus Son-in-Law 1's nice parents, and Mr L's cousin, came to us for the afternoon and evening. Also fun. And that was the end of the festive season. 

Today the weather was beautiful but chilly. We went for a walk but I didn't take any photos. However, Daughter 1 and family took pictures on their walk up the hill near their house. 

It's quite a pech (puff) up those steps!  

Happy New Year to anyone who reads this; may 2026 be a good one for us all. Not to say for the rest of the world, a fair bit of which probably needs our good wishes more than we do. 

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. 

 

The skeleton

I've been down to London again and am now back. Littlest Granddaughter enjoyed going to school in her Christmas jumper (on Christmas Jumper Day), with presents for her teachers in a sack. 

Here she is playing light sabres (I think) with her mum. 

Here is Snowdrop the guinea pig. 

And here's Daughter 2 wrapping some presents. 

I've been reading a book by Doris Grumbach, an American writer. I can't remember how I heard of this book - "Extra Innings" - but must have seen it recommended somewhere and asked for it for my birthday. It's a memoir of a year, written when she was 75 (I am also 75), but it talks quite a bit about her previous book, "Coming into the End Zone", which she wrote when she was 70. She clearly didn't like being 70 and said so extensively. I haven't read that book, but she mentions that a lot of people criticised it for being excessively gloomy. The book I did read was slightly less (I think) negative. I quite enjoyed it, and being the same age, am sometimes aware, as she was, of the physical discomforts of the ageing body. However, I was amused to read on the internet that she actually lived to 104. I can't think how grumpy she must have been by then! Who knows how long I (or anyone) will live? but it did remind me that one shouldn't try to think too much about when one will die. She wasted a lot of time, it appears, waiting for death, when it was actually quite far off. 

This bit amused me, though. She had a habit of seeing jobs advertised and thinking, oh, I could do that. I find myself doing the same sometimes, and then I come to my senses. As she says, "There is not time to become anything else. There is barely enough time to finish being what you are." Mind you... she had nearly another 30 years, as it turns out, so perhaps a career as an assistant librarian lies ahead of me after all ...

This is a plastic skeleton that I got in a cracker (do Americans know about crackers that aren't biscuits?) in, I think, 1962. We were having Christmas lunch out with my grandparents and for some reason were speculating as to what the cracker toys might be, and I said, "Maybe a skeleton." Which was a very odd guess, but turned out very surprisingly to be right.  For many years it lived (do skeletons live? possibly not) in a dish on my dressing table and then it passed on to Daughter 2, who still has it. After nearly every sentence in that paragraph, the question Why? would be quite appropriate. 

Anyway, now I'm home and missing her a lot. Still, mustn't be a grumbler, like Doris Grumbach.