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. 

Then and now

The exhibition about James VI and I and his times was excellent. Look at the embroidery on this woman's waistcoat! 

And the detail on this painting!

I have been horrendously busy with choir stuff and other things, but meanwhile the garden has been blooming away. Self-seeded foxgloves...

alliums 

irises and lupins 

and more irises.

We had lunch at Swanston yesterday to celebrate the birthdays of Mr Life and Son-in-Law 1, and then went for a little walk. 

All very peaceful, and a beautiful day. We've had an unusual run of beautiful weather but the garden needs rain. Shouldn't complain, really; it's been lovely. And it'll rain eventually. 

 

Tulips and other signs of spring

Amazingly, some of my Mother's Day flowers are still hanging on. (Mother's Day here was March 15!)

I have been far too busy, arranging and rearranging social events for groups of friends (which will be nice, of course) and doing lots of admin for the choir of which I'm chair. Much too much time has been spent on the computer. However, on Saturday we redid the walk for which we did the recce a few weeks ago; this time it was the real thing, with the other walking chums. 

On the recce we were walking into a strong wind, which made it quite tiring. 

But on Saturday the weather was perfect for walking: mild and very still, and what with that and the chatting, the 6 and a half miles felt easy. 

Back in Edinburgh, the cherry blossom is going over, with drifts of pink on the pavements. 

The trees are so pretty, though. 

This is part of a regular walk near where we live. 

This bit of the Water of Leith feels quite rural, though it isn't. 

And back home, the garden flourishes, 

as does this pot of tulips outside the front door. I love the colour. 

So as long as one doesn't listen to the news, life is peaceful. 

 

Spring

Spring is a-cumin in and Littlest Granddaughter can play in the park after school. 

The great excitement in her life is that she's now got two guinea pigs. She's thrilled! I hope they live long lives...

Daughter 1's garden wall fell down during Storm Eowyn (well, it was pushed over by a blown-down buddleia in between it and the fence next door) and today Darren the Patio came and sorted this out. 

It's now all fixed and much smarter, with a smaller wall which can be weeded behind, and slabs for putting pots of flowers on, maybe?

My friend Janet wanted a fish tank with fish in it, but her family persuaded her that it would be a lot of work, so she got her friends and family to colour in a fish each and she's mounted these. I sent the daughters a photo of the finished "tank", and asked which one they thought I'd done, and within something like 20 seconds, Daughter 2 had screenshotted (is this a word?) the correct one and sent it back to me. How well she knows me! I wasn't surprised at the correctness of the answer, though the speed did surprise me somewhat. (It's the lower middle one with a yellow face, blue body and stripy fins. It's a bit pale compared to some of the others.)

Crocuses and daffodils splashing their colour in the garden. Gosh, a garden - or at least, mine - is a lot of work at this time of year.

These come up by themselves, but I've been slaving away cutting down last year's herbaceous perennials and waging war on bitter cress and that little willow herb with surprisingly long roots. Still, it's all worth it. I do love flowers. 

 

Big Grandson is 13

Big Grandson was 13 on Wednesday. 13! A teenager! Fortunately he's showing no signs of being a grumpy one. None of our children were difficult teenagers either, so I'm hoping that this continues. He's a lovely chap. They came here for tea, he having been with his dad on a bus trip round the city - which he loves doing. 

They usually come on Fridays, and yesterday he had a nostalgic play with the Brio that now resides in cupboards most of the time (there's a lot of it!). He and Biggest Granddaughter had a good time with it and he requested that it be left out so that they can continue with it tomorrow. He used to play with it every time he was here, but (sniff) now he's mainly grown out of it. It takes up a lot of room in our house... 

And today we went for a walk with our walking chums. 

It was very enjoyable. The weather was warm (at last) but we mainly walked through woodland so it wasn't too sticky. 

Then we came home and I wandered round the garden for a bit. It's very flowery. The perennial sweet peas are doing well. 

The (pestilential but pretty) Japanese anemones are growing into the phlox again. 

This is a pretty hydrangea which my work colleagues gave me when I retired. For a few years it refused to flower once I'd planted it in the garden, but after I threatened to dig it out, it did flower and has continued to do so every year since then. 

I love this verbena. It's taller than me. I hope it survives next winter - it got through the last one, but that was quite mild. 

This fuchsia at the front of the bed is very hardy; I love it. 

This is a good clematis, though unfortunately the slugs agree. 

This clematis hasn't done so well as usual, this year; presumably it's been too chilly for it. 

Just as I sat down in my little reading nook, our neighbour started mowing his lawn, very noisily. He's very meticulous and likes to mow it in stripes. Eventually he stopped, but by that time it had started spitting very slightly. I tried to ignore this, and read on for a while. But then the rain became just a bit too damp. Oh well. It saved me from having to water the pots. 

 

Summer stuff

And so life drifts on, busily but unremarkably (which is all good). The garden takes up quite a lot of time, even though the front part is full of volunteer plants, such as this lupin and all the foxgloves.

I do love them -

and the Canterbury bells. It's all a case of weeding judiciously. 

And it's also bloom time for things that I did plant, such as these alliums

and these peonies. 

The garden is full of bees. 

Look at these clematis climbing up the fence. 

Isn't nature wonderful? - with considerable help from man, or in this case woman. 

On Saturday we walked with our friends from Dirleton to North Berwick, along the coast. It's been very warm, so we were happy that it was cloudy and not too hot for walking. 

We lunched on this rock. 

Here we are approaching North Berwick after a walk of about 5 miles. We got to Dirleton, in East Lothian, about 20 miles from Edinburgh, by bus - and back again - all free for over 60s, which is very satisfactory. 

Many of the cottages in East Lothian have red roofs, the tiles made from the very red earth of the countryside. 

We sat on the top deck of the bus, like teenagers. 

There was a lot of general teenage hilarity from us over-70s, which was fun.  It was a lovely day out.

And today I visited my very nice friend Joyce, and as always took a photo of the Forth Bridge out of her window. Much the same photo every time. Can't break with tradition. 

And that was another week. It beats working.