Things to do

It's beautifully mild and sunny here, which is very nice though possibly the indication of dreadful global warming. There's a lot of work to be done in the garden. It still looks quite good from a distance, however. 

The cosmos always takes ages to flower but is worth the wait. 

Last spring, when my huge pot of amaryllis had finished flowering, for some reason I can't now remember I put it temporarily in the garden rather than on a windowsill. I never normally do this because I don't want to import slugs. And of course, five months later, it's still there. I now need to split it up (it has multiple bulbs) but it's taken it upon itself to flower now instead of spring - as well as spring? And of course the slugs have been chewing the flowers. I decided that today was the day I was going to repot it in various pots, and of course I can't get it out of the pot. Mr L is out. I need him to take one end while I yank the other. Or maybe to cut the pot off. I don't think I have anything sharp enough. 

I'm finding it harder to find things to declutter without having a Good Sort Out, which I don't have time for. Too much music to learn, too much gardening to do, too much quilting to have fun with. (Why are all my hobbies so time-consuming?) But here, guilt, guilt, is last Monday's offering. Mr L's cousin is a potter, and she made this pretty little bowl and gave it to my mother. It's been sitting in the bedroom that was Mum's when she lived with us, since Mum died in 2012, and so it's fallen victim to the purge. Someone will love it, and we have various other of Cousin S's creations. I expect Cousin S has forgotten about it. I hope. Anyway, she won't see this. 

I'm sitting here listening to Brahms's Song of Destiny and Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. I think I know the music all right, but am not so good on the words - the first one in German and the second (much harder) in all sorts of things. Listening while blogging doesn't help with the words...

Right, I'm off to start cutting out a Christmas quilt for Daughter 2. It's quite a simple one. I think. (I'm such an optimist.) Again, it's just from a photo rather than from a pattern. There's a bit of arithmetic to do. 

Jumping

Ah, Blogger is putting the photos back to front again. 

The latest offerings to the gods of minimalism: an elderly Postman Pat jigsaw

and a couple of round tablecloths. A friend has just this moment emailed me, having seen these sacrificial articles on my Facebook page, to ask if she can have the jigsaw for her little grandson, so I've now removed it from the bin. Fortunately it hadn't suffered from its sojourn there! 

The tablecloths date from the time when, here at any rate, it was fashionable to cover a round table with a coloured cloth and then put a white lacy one on top of that. It was a pretty fashion, I thought, but has now passed, so why did I keep the white cloths? Well, no longer. They're off to a charity shop. 

We went up yesterday to visit Son and family. We didn't actually go to their house, but to the Scottish Deer Centre, which does have deer but also various other fun things such as these bouncy pillows. Son can jump quite high on them. He's now, surprisingly, 42; strange, since I myself am only 35. Could I have jumped that high at 42?? Hmm. 

The garden flourishes on,

though we've had some rain after a very dry summer,

so the weeds are taking full advantage. 

There's a lot which will need to be cut down in the next little while. 

But meanwhile, the autumn flowers give us pleasure. 

Flowers and flying

It was Big Grandson's 15th birthday on Friday. 15!!! It seems no time since he was a baby. He's still a lovely boy, though, and certainly Big - nearly 6 feet tall. He doesn't really want stuff, so Mr L and he went off to Newcastle for a couple of days to ride on trains and buses and the metro. They had fun. 

On Saturday, we went with our walking chums to Haddington, to walk along the river to East Linton. 

It doesn't really look it here, but it was a hot day. 

This bit looks fairly idyllic, 

as does this, but actually, a lot of the time we were walking in single file along the river bank, on a very narrow path with small rocks and tree roots sticking up, so it was quite tricky. 

Which explains how I - no one else, just idiot I - managed to trip on one of these stones/tree roots, not once but twice, both times going flying. The first time I landed mainly on my right thigh, up at the top, and thought - argh, my new hip! But fortunately I don't seem to have damaged it. The second time I landed on my hands, knees and nose. Again, though nothing was exactly improved by this, nothing was broken, which was a great relief and I hope shows the relative strength of my bones. But I was pretty shaken up both times. Since we had a good two miles of path to go before we reached a road, I just got up again and, after some sticking-plastering, plodded on, though more slowly and carefully. It does make me wonder how, if I had broken a leg or ankle, the emergency services would have reached me. We were on a river bank, surrounded by trees - a helicopter wouldn't have worked. It would have had to have been a stretcher party, plodding along two or three miles of this narrow path. Lucky them!

Ah well, the garden blooms on,

though I must do something about the pretty, but rampant, Japanese anemones. As I say every year at about this time. 

This week's victims of my minimalising: two crystal butter dishes (we have four) and a crystal heart that I think I bought my mum when desperate for a present for her. It's pretty. But I don't need it. 

My agapanthus is doing well, It's enormous. One day we may be unable to get out of our kitchen door. 

And we went to the Botanics today with the Edinburgh Two plus their dad, and admired the wild flower meadow patches. 

All very flowery. But we need rain. 

 

Flowers yet again

I met up with school friends on Wednesday and one of them brought along the obituary (from 2002) of the headmistress who took over at our school when we were in fifth (ie second last) year. To my amazement, this lady was only 38 when she became headmistress! While we didn't think she was ancient, especially compared with the previous head, who was clearly 150, we didn't think she was - well, what now seems to me - really quite young. She'd previously been head of another girls' school in England before that, too. When I was 38, I was just going back very part-time to work because our youngest, Son, was 4 and at nursery in the mornings. I certainly had no ambitions to be head of anything. Of course, I had 3 small children, while Miss Thow was unmarried. She was softly spoken but she must have been very driven. Then she only lasted 11 years at our school before leaving to do something completely different. 

Thirty-eight! A child! Younger than any of our children are now.

The people we bought this house from, 36 years ago, were not gardeners at all, but they - or possibly someone previously - planted this climbing rose. It's at its peak just now. It doesn't have a second flush of flowers and it's not very scented, but it's rather beautiful. Thanks, Mr and Mrs B. 

Look what happens when you weed judiciously. Foxgloves and candytuft, all self-sown. 

Also campanula, Canterbury bells. 

All things that I remember from our garden when I was a small child. So many of my memories are of that garden, which had lilac, lupins, pinks, irises, geums ... and I used to have my little garden plot, where I planted annuals - clarkia, candytuft, nasturtiums. 

Flowers and flowery china

I was very busy organising our choir's concert... and also being in Wales, socialising and so on... so the garden had got away from me somewhat. There's lots of colour, but there are also quite a few weeds, as well as things that require to be discouraged from taking over the whole garden. I love irises. 

And I love this thalictrum, but I have another one, much smaller, that sat there for 34 years behaving itself and then suddenly, a couple of years ago, decided to take over the world. I have been battling with it this evening. So far, I am not winning. It has matted roots, and sends out sideways bits of root which then shoot up some distance away. Grr. 

There are lots of bulb leaves which haven't yet yellowed, so have to be left for a while. They do look a bit messy. Is that yellow flower a ranunculus? I think so. I used to know...

These pansies have been flowering for months. 

I have been yanking out lots of forget-me-nots, which are getting past their best. 

Lovely bright heuchera, 

and alliums. See the paeonies behind them? I must stake them tomorrow, before they flower. This is a difficult task, because the bees on the alliums suspect me of wicked intentions. 

Mr L was away for the weekend, riding trains up north with some rail-enthusiast friends. We had hot weather. He did not. I missed him, but it was nice not cooking for a few days. I ate cheese sandwiches, peas and fruit. I'm not a foodie. 

It's been too hot for gardening, though I have nobly been doing it anyway. 25C, which is 77F. Too hot for a feeble Scot. This afternoon, though, I sat in the shade beside this lilac, which smells divine, and read my book. 

 And it's Minimalising Monday, so this coffee set is on its way to a charity shop. I got it from my aunt and uncle for my 21st birthday. I'm now nearly 76. It was a design I chose, and in due course we got lots of matching china for wedding presents. I still think it's pretty, but though we do occasionally use the rest of the china, we never use the small coffee cups because who wants a small cup of coffee these days? (They're much smaller than they look in the photo.) Unless it's espresso, I suppose, but we never have this. I decided to add some plates, a jug and a sugar bowl because I have three of these jugs, two sugar bowls and plenty of side plates. (Why did I get three jugs?)

Fresh air and exercise

I've decided to stop calling our decluttering "death cleaning" - a bit depressing. It's now Minimalising Monday; though if Mondays are too busy it can actually happen on another day. This Monday we took my mother's crystal bowl to a charity shop. It's been in our house since my lovely mum died in 2012, and I've never used it. I have several crystal bowls that I do use, and this one, because it's shallow, takes up a lot of space. 

And we took Mr L's old bike to a bike place where they refurbish them for good causes - youth groups and so on. 

We've also arranged for a charity to come and collect the books we're getting rid of. They're coming on May 5, so we need to tackle the books in the other rooms before then. I love a deadline. And Mr L is decluttering his old cameras. 

On Saturday we went on a lovely walk with the gang round Gosford House in East Lothian. 

The weather was perfect. 

This was our lunch spot. 

Reflections. 

Six miles, including walking along to the golf clubhouse for coffee overlooking the sea. 

And then home on the bus.

My little cercis chinensis is looking good, with its tulip entourage. 

Yesterday I was up town and admired the view from the bus stop.

And look at these frilly tulips in the garden! So pink. Lovely spring. 

 

More flowers. And death cleaning.

This is the time of year when my amaryllises (is that the plural?) flower all at once and I don't really know what to do with them, because they're huge. I have three pots of them and they sit in a spare room looking boringly leafy for 11 months, and then have their fortnight of glory downstairs. In fact, they badly need to be repotted and split into at least 8 pots, but do I want 8 leafy pots sitting around all year? I do not. The year before last, I did some splitting, and got rid of 3 pots to friends. Next year I must do more of this! The trouble is that I can't bear to throw them away. And you can't really persuade people to accept them apart from when they're in bud and look promising. I've had the original bulb for... oh, it must be twenty or more years. 

Talking of getting rid of things, I've made a resolution that every Monday morning I'm going to throw something away or take it to a charity shop. Thus if I live to, oh, 96, my children won't have much to do with my stuff when I die. So far we've kept this up for two weeks but I'm determined to continue. Books don't count. We do take books to charity shops anyway. But we have a lot of books. 

A member of the choir of which I'm chair died suddenly on Saturday. She felt unwell all week, then felt better, then felt worse and died on the way to hospital. She was at choir the previous week, apparently fine. Keep decluttering, Pam. I mean, she was 78, but I'm 75. 

It's spring in the garden. 

Lovely lovely. 

I've done quite a bit of tidying, but there's still more to do. However, weeding this hyacinth bed was a pleasure. The scent!

This is my little shady reading corner for hot weather. But it's not hot yet. 

Pink and yellow don't really go together, but I think they're fine here. Every year I buy quite a few hyacinths at the supermarket to have in the house over a couple of months, and then I plant them in the garden afterwards. We've been in the house for 36 years, so it's quite a hyacinthy garden. I  hope the people who come after us in the house don't concrete the whole thing over. 

In London, Littlest Granddaughter looks at a new book on the stairs. 

In Dundee Botanic Gardens yesterday, Small Grandson runs on stepping stones. We were up to see the family, which was very nice, though Dundee Botanics aren't a patch on the Edinburgh ones, and they charge you £5 entry fee, while the Edinburgh ones are free. I think the Edinburgh ones should charge, really; but I'm very glad they don't.