Plodding about

Last Sunday we drove up to Angus to visit Son and his family. We went for a walk in a wood.

It was pretty. We had it more or less to ourselves. 

The children ploutered about, as children do. 

Son is rather more relaxed than I was as a parent about the possibility of their falling in the water. On this occasion I was fairly relaxed as a granny because I reckoned that it wouldn't be my job to jump in and pull them out if they fell in.  Which they didn't.

There was a bit further on where they could paddle. And they did. (They were wearing wellies.)

Another day we went to the Botanics, which is getting ready for its Christmas light show. 

The girls and I are taking all the children to see this nearer Christmas. 

The weather has been incredibly mild - very global warmingish but also very pleasant indeed. I never particularly like persicaria, but in bulk it does give a good show. Maybe I'll get some. 

These artificial lilies are quite striking. Not sure what the ducks made of them. I assume they'll light up. 

In our garden, this hyacinth thinks it's spring. It's wrong. 

And with no frosts, the cosmos

and the fuchsias and begonias in pots bloom on. I do like fuchsias. 

Today we took a load of books to the Oxfam book shop (and managed only to buy two, so that's a win) and then walked along the river from Stockbridge

past St Bernard's Well

- saying hello to the heron -

and then up into the New Town, round the streets a bit and back down to Stockbridge. 

And in the afternoon I made two Christmas cakes* to add to the two I made the other day. A sticky task, but now done. 

And I'm still making two quilts for the sweet little Unbloggables. Will these be finished by Christmas? Possibly. 

I like to keep busy. Too many things to do! Not enough time!

* Christmas cakes are rich fruit cakes, full of sultanas and raisins and cherries and almonds. They're supposed to be made early, to mature. They keep for ages. 

 

The man on the roof

We have been rather busy. The Unbloggables (Son and family) came to visit us from Wednesday to Saturday last week, which was so lovely. I don't think they've ever stayed so long - certainly not since Little Grandson (now 2) was born and I don't think they've stayed more than one night at a time since Middle Granddaughter (5 come August) was on the scene. It was very nice indeed, but they're an active family and not that easy for us to keep up with. One day we went along the nearby cycle path, above. Both children have inherited their parents' agility - nature or nurture or a mixture of both? They live in the country and so there's nothing much to do nearby except walking and playparking - and then, of course, Covid has meant no outings to the nearby city. 

Little Grandson is a great tractor/digger enthusiast (of course he's had no access to public transport in his lifetime). We went to see the trams and trains near us. "What's a tram?" asked Medium Granddaughter. 

Another day we went to the Zoo. 

The pair of them enjoyed playing with Big Grandson's Brio, which he's suddenly grown out of (sob). 

We went to the Botanics. This is an adorable photo (take my word for it) of them sitting on a branch. 

And on Friday the Edinburgh Two came and they all played very nicely together. 

And Son very decently agreed to go up on the kitchen roof and clean our two skylights. This is not a task which has tempted Mr L or me recently. We would have to climb up a ladder, but Son swarmed up via a fence. 

The children are so lovely. Middle Granddaughter is extremely affectionate and gives us wonderful cuddles and Little Grandson, though understandably more circumspect, got quite used to us after a while. Can't wait to see them again!

And yesterday we changed all the beds and washed the towels and so on. The paddling pool is put away and so are some of the toys. I shall now go and tackle the rest. 

 

More Covid days

On Tuesday, the digger was to arrive to remove all the lilac trunks and roots from the former hedge area. But we woke to this: the holes dug in our road the other day (which prevented our landscaper from coming on Wednesday) were being filled in today, thus blocking the tiny street once again. The filler-in chaps said they'd be finished in about half an hour but... needless to say, they weren't, and the digger couldn't get down the street. Again. We didn't know this, however, because we went up north to visit the UnBloggables, happily imagining the digger doing its stuff. 

We're not allowed to go in other people's houses so we went to the zoo, which is small but rather good. I'm not fond of things being in cages, but they're reasonably big cages and it was certainly interesting to see the animals at close quarters. Here's a lovely (not that you can see her loveliness) picture of Middle Granddaughter sitting on a wooden tortoise. 

And here is Son, holding her and her brother for another sweet photo on the tortoise. They're so cute!

This is a hornbill of some variety which I forget. It's an amazing-looking bird, almost more like a dinosaur. 

This is the meerkat which had been appointed sentinel, for that morning anyway. It was taking its duties very seriously. 

It was a beautiful day (fortunately, since we had to stay outside) with the trees beginning to show good autumn colour. 

Later we went to the playpark and then fed the ducks

and found some tactahs. Little Grandson is very fond of tactahs, as was his biggest cousin. We had a lovely day. 

Sadly the digger wasn't available yesterday but - tada! - today it was!

 

And it dug up the roots that looked as if they were there for ever. 

This is the current state of play. 

 And these are the roots, awaiting collection. 

Very exciting! I can't wait to see the finished effect - not that it'll be very interesting - just more grass - but it'll add quite a few square feet to my little town garden. 

More restrictions were announced yesterday for the Central Belt of Scotland, though they don't affect us hugely: we're not allowed to mix with other households indoors apart from for childcare purposes; pubs and restaurants are to close at 6pm and aren't allowed to sell alcohol; and we're not to travel outside our region unless for a very good reason. It's only supposed to be for a fortnight, so if this remains the case then we can go and see Son again before too long. I'm not counting my chickens, though. Sigh. And it's rubbish for the hospitality trade. 

Cats and other familial matters

We had a lovely visit yesterday to Son and his family, the UnBloggables. Normally I would crop a photo or two to prove their existence without showing much of them, but with the new excellent system of taking pictures straight from Google photos, I don't know how to. (This isn't to say that I haven't been shown. But if so, I can't remember.) Anyway, these are their cats, who were fairly unimpressed by us, but nice and furry.  (Goodness, Blogger has changed the way to enlarge photos again - just as I'd got used to their previous change.)

Here is Mr L getting to play with Son's ride-on mower. He liked that! Son and his family live in a pretty place, but it's quite a drive away and very much in the country - which no doubt has some advantages, but from our point of view has some major disadvantages, the main one being (in)accessibility. However, it's near our daughter-in-law's family, which is nice for them. We got a lovely welcome from Middle Granddaughter, which was very heart-warming, and though Little Grandson was somewhat suspicious at first, he relaxed quite quickly. I don't worry about him so much as I did about Middle Granddaughter, because she now remembers us and I assume he will too, eventually. Though of course it's doubtful if he'll remember us once he's a grown-up, unless we live for quite a long time. However, he's very delicious and I just try to enjoy him and his lovely big sister for the moment. Who knows what the future holds? 

Here's the tiny toad that Son rescued from being in the way of the ride-on mower. 

It was a very nice day. 

Today - excitement - we had a viewer for Daughter 2's flat. It was a girl with her mother, who came along for advice purposes. They took quite a while to look around - we waited outside after the initial showing round - and then went back again for another look, so I suppose they were serious viewers, but they didn't express any opinions, which doesn't seem a good sign. Anyway, we came home via the Botanics and enjoyed the autumn colour, such as these phloxes. 

The leaves are only just beginning to turn, but it was quite a lot chillier today than it's been recently. 

 

This viburnum's leaves are turning purple.

  

and this hydrangea gave a good show,  

 as did the Japanese anemones. 

My two choirs have both started up, on Zoom. It's not ideal, singing away with everyone else on mute. But it's all that can be done at the moment. 

Complications

There have been strong winds recently, and some cold weather which caused the road bridge between us and Son's house to ice up, so that lumps of ice fell on (I think) eight cars, smashing their windscreens.  This is the new bridge - the further away one you can see in the photo above, taken from the train. The new bridge is only a couple of years old, built at a cost of £1.3 billion, and as you can imagine, there is some consternation that this should have happened. Ice, in Scotland in winter - fancy. And they don't seem to know how to guard against its happening again. Anyway, the bridge was closed for a couple of days, which prevented Son and family from coming down to visit while Daughter 2 was here.

It's not icy any more but as an experiment, Mr L and I decided that on our next visit to them we would go by train, over the rail bridge, which doesn't accumulate lumps of ice. Son and family live out in the country, so we joined a car club so that we could pick up a car from near the station and drive the few miles from there to Son's house. We also thought that, as Mr L isn't getting any younger, it would be better in the long run not to have to drive all the way to Son's, on busy and tedious roads.

This didn't work quite as smoothly as we'd hoped, since the car we'd hired wasn't actually in the indicated location, and then when we tracked it down the instructions for driving it (it was an electric vehicle) were somewhat inadequate. However, we got it all sorted out - well, Mr L did; I just sat there making soothing noises - and think we might do it again in the future.

We met them at the park and, as you can't see, the Little Unbloggables had a nice time on the swings and things.

Small Grandson is at the stage of walking while having his hands held. He's a beautiful little chap with big eyes and lots of hair.

Here they all are.

And here's a picture of all of us. Middle Granddaughter is a lovely little thing who greets us with enthusiasm, which is so nice. Small Grandson is considerably more suspicious, but at least we have some confidence that once he can remember who we are, he'll be friendly too. I do wish we saw more of them but there we are. You can't have everything. 

A couple in one of the choirs I sing in has this dolls' house, which they show for charity from time to time, so we went to see it the other day. My photos don't do it justice, but it's amazing. The wife made all the soft furnishings, which means that she embroidered the carpets, the bell pull here, the chair coverings, the place mats and napkins, the fire screen - they're all minute. The husband did all the wallpapering and installed all the joinery.

Look at the bedspread - again, hand embroidered. And the sampler - hand stitched. It's all tiny! There are three working clocks and the silverware on the dining room table is actual silver, which of course requires polishing.

And the stair carpet - hand stitched. All astonishing. Sadly, they have three sons, all uninterested, and three uninterested daughters-in-law, and their grandchildren are all too young to understand the work involved in it, so they're not sure what to plan for its future. It's museum quality, so they're thinking of donating it ultimately to somewhere that would display it permanently.

And these are some of the recent complications of life.