Ways of the world

It's spring here, despite the awful goings-on elsewhere in this sad world. The garden flowers on. 

And is beautiful.

We went to the Botanics, where it's also spring, and lovely. 

On Sunday we walked at Fisherrow and Musselburgh with the Edinburgh family. I do love living near the sea. 

There's a playpark, which is still of considerable interest to Big Granddaughter but not so much to Big Grandson, who is growing up. Well, they both are, obviously. Big Grandson's feet are now the same size as mine and he comes mid-way up my forehead. (Granted, my forehead isn't as far off the ground as some people's.)

Today we went up north to play with Small Grandson while Doctor Son worked once again on his day off. There's a lot more paperwork involved in being a GP than people imagine. We found a digger in Dundee, digging up what looked like perfectly good grass and daffodils in a park. Small Grandson was very interested. We couldn't imagine why it was doing it until Son later suggested that it was maybe for a wildflower area. This seems possible: the digger was scraping up a lot of the topsoil too. 

It's strange in many ways, being oldish. Practices that were once the thing to do, or at least perfectly acceptable, no longer are. What to do in the garden, for one. Garden programmes and magazines tell us to leave a patch of lawn unmown or nettles to flower. Well, hmm. I can absolutely see the reasons for doing this, but in my little patch of heaven? There's little enough space to grow the things I love, let alone encouraging - can I say weeds? And then there are slugs and snails - all part of ecology, undoubtedly, but it's hard to love them. I don't spray things, though, and do have lots of nectar-bearing plants, so do my best. But I like a neat lawn - now regarded as a desert by gardeners who like the more unkempt, more nature-friendly approach. Guilt... .

My friend is how out of hospital - having been there since her stroke on January 4. I wrote her over fifty letters (on paper) while she was there, because she liked getting them, but am going to move to emails, since she now has easy access to a computer. She can walk a bit on sticks and climb stairs with an effort, and her mind and speech are unaffected, but she has a long way to go. 

 

Grandchildren

On Saturday we went up to Angus to visit Son and family, which was lovely. The weather was beautiful. 

The children played in the big playpark not too far from where they live and then we went back to their house. 

This is the view from their garden in one direction. It's very peaceful. If only it weren't such a trail to get there from here.

Medium Granddaughter, who's a dear little thing, is very good at swinging from the monkey bars in their garden. She's strong and light - an excellent combination. 

On Sunday - also a sunny day - we walked in the local park with the Edinburgh Two and their parents. That was very nice too.

And today we were back up at Son's, looking after Small Grandson while Son worked on the backlog of work paperwork that has built up. 

We went to Dundee Botanic gardens. Small Grandson likes the fish in the glasshouse ponds. 

This is another view over their garden today, when it was sunny but rather chilly. 

This is all very mundane - though pleasant for us. But there seem to be so many things to worry about at the moment that I feel a constant sinking of the heart - Ukraine, Syria, Afghanistan. Poor Ukraine. I taught a very nice Ukrainian student long ago. She was clever and wanted to do medicine, but hadn't been here very long and her written English wasn't good enough for her to get the requisite grade in Higher English. I always wondered what happened to her. I hope she managed to fulfil her potential in some way or another. She'd be in her 30s now. 

And, closer to home, various family members are moving/trying to move/thinking of moving house. No huge problems compared to those on other sides of the world, but - always something to think about in the stilly watches of the night. 

 

Hey ho

On Saturday, Mr L and I took Big Grandson to Glasgow (on two trains, which he much enjoyed) to see the model railway exhibition. It's three years since this last took place, because of Covid. The last time, Big Grandson was only 7, and didn't have the same viewing stamina as Mir L, so this time I went with them to allow Mr L to go round more thoroughly. However, this time Big Grandson's stamina easily equalled Mr L's, so after a while I found a chair and read my book. 

So that was a nice day. He had a lovely time - well, they both did. 

And it's spring, and the garden is blooming. The news is, by contrast, awful. But what can one really do except hope for the best and admire the beauties of nature? 

Today we went to the Botanics and forgot our worries for a while. 

I never think I really mind the winter, but when spring comes, I realise that I've missed the light and the colour. 

The Botanics have so many snowdrops. I have some, but they don't hugely like my garden, I don't think. 

Hey ho. 

Blogger is playing silly devils, as it sometimes does, and I can't reply to any comments in the comments. But thank you, non-bloggers, for your messages. They're much appreciated. 

Thank goodness for the Botanics. And some sanity in the world.

 We went to the Botanics again yesterday - it's half-way between Daughter 1's house and ours, and so it's a convenient place for us all to meet up outdoors (as we're told to do). This time we read the information board about the golden monkey (not a chimp - as Daughter 1 pointed out, chimps don't have tails). It's an art work by Lisa Roet, and the board says:

"The sculpture shows a golden snub-nosed monkey. There are five species of snub-nosed monkey. All are at risk of extinction and their future existence is in serious doubt. The five species live separately in temperate and tropical forest areas, with a different diet of leaves, buds, flowers, fruits, barks, lichens and moss. The golden snub-nosed monkey withstands cold better than any other primate (except humans with thermals). This hand-painted, inflatable sculpture is one of a series created to highlight the plight of these increasingly endangered primates."

So now we know. It's previously been on the Melbourne Town Hall in Australia, seemingly. It's certainly striking and makes a good point (or at least it does to those who read the information board). Is it art? Well, maybe. 

And the children played in the dry leaves

and jumped off a tree stump. 

And we admired them doing so, and the colours of the trees. 

From time to time, all the way round, the children suggested that we should go to the cafe and we said, yes, yes, we will once we've done the circuit of the gardens. And we got the timing completely wrong because we forgot that the gardens close at 4 at this time of year - just as we got to the cafe. The kids were astonishingly good about it. Granny fail, however. 

Good news about Joe Biden winning the American election. It must be good news, mustn't it? I wouldn't like his job, though. I'd much rather do patchwork, plant things, go for walks. Which is just as well, since that's about all that's available at the moment. 

Flowers

The horrible news about Brussels is so depressing that I'm posting pictures of flowers in a lalala, not listening sort of way. I apologise for my feebleness.

On February 14, I took a photo, above, of a £3 bunch of roses I'd bought from the local supermarket. I'd had them for a couple of days at that point.

These photos, above and below, are the same flowers, today, over five weeks later.

That's slightly hard to believe, isn't it? But the evidence is there in my photo albums. What good value! One of them is starting to go slightly brown at the edges but the rest look fine. I find that cutting roses short is the key to making them last, but it doesn't normally work this well.

 And the city parks are full of spring flowers. So I suppose you just have to keep hoping.

The camper van birthday

Dear little N was 3 yesterday. His other grandparents are visiting and they all came to tea, but since they didn't all fit in the car, Son-in-Law 1 and his father came by bus. There were presents to open, but he patiently waited until his dad and grandfather arrived before opening them. He and Granddaughter played happily with my polished stones. He will with justification be able to tell his children that when he was young he made his own amusement and played with (sticks and) stones.

He got various presents. One of them was ...

... a yellow camper van...

... - a companion piece to one of his favourite toys, which is a red camper van.

He forgot about the unopened presents for a while, though his little sister was quite interested in them.

He also got a scooter and was very serious in his attempts to ride it.

And then there was cake, made by his mum. He was extremely pleased to see it and very happy when we sang "Happy Birthday" ("Again!" - so we sang it again) and quite keen to eat it as well.

Inside it was chocolatey. It's amazing how babies who have never seen chocolate cake can still recognise it and reject their healthy raspberries till they get a bit of it.

Another satisfied customer.

And then when they all went away and we turned on the news, we learned about the awful attack on the Malaysian Airlines plane.

Nationalism. It's madness. People are people; what do labels matter? Kindness matters.

Scotland is having a referendum for independence in September and we will be voting No, for those very sorts of  reasons.

The unsatisfactoriness of some aspects of life

This is the garden last year. See all that yellow coreopsis in the big flowerbed? It was spreading and choking all around it, so in the autumn, with great toil, I dug every bit of it out.

And this is it this year. Hmm. I think I must have missed a bit.

Nothing really to say except it's hard to forget that September day, 10 years ago yesterday. We remember it as a family because Daughter 2 was in the air while the hijackings were taking place. Fortunately she was on her way to Sweden. So many others were not so fortunate.

I wonder what the chances are that this is being read by the person who kicked off Son's young lady's wing mirrors from her parked car some time overnight on Saturday? No, I don't think so either. I wonder what satisfaction it gave this person. She's a hardworking young doctor who has to drive 30 miles to the hospital she's working at just now. Hard to fathom.

Lots of things are hard to fathom, aren't they?

Japan

Oh, Japan! Words fail; but like everyone else I feel so much for people involved in the terrible catastrophe there.

Christchurch

Oh dear. Poor Christchurch. Poor New Zealand. How very terrible. I do hope that my bloggy friends and their families are as all right as anyone could be in these awful circumstances.

Hurray for the human race

Like the rest of the world, or at least large chunks of it, we awoke this morning to reports that the first few trapped Chilean miners had been rescued. What wonderful news. I’m sure millions of us have been imagining with shuddering dread what it must have been like down there: fear, darkness, heat, dirt, boredom, loneliness, overcrowding – all these would be part of most people’s worst nightmares, I’d think.

Although it must have been an unimaginably horrific experience for the 33 men, it was uplifting to watch, as we rushed to get ready for work, the third man coming to the surface. I had tears in my eyes. And I’ve remained uplifted throughout the day - mainly because the men are safe, of course, but also because for once it’s a news item in which human beings are shown in a positive light. It appears that the miners have been impressively stoical; the rescuers have battled for weeks to bring off the very difficult technical feat of retrieving them from half a mile underground – and have been successful; and the families have been steadfast in their vigil at the rescue site. The result: much joy, many congratulations and lots of reunited families.

No doubt there will be less encouraging tales emerging in the next few weeks and months. It seems likely that many of the rescued men will be plagued by nightmares and panic attacks once the euphoria of rescue has abated – we’re not witnessing the end of the story when we see them emerge blinking into the light. But still – for once I feel quite proud to be a human.

One detail from this morning lodges firmly in my mind. According to this morning’s news, the rescue cage went down for the first time with a paramedic in it. Now, I realise that the miners had been stuck deep underground for three months; but they had no choice. What sort of hero would you have to be to volunteer to try out the cage (agh) and then to stay down in that pit of horror (ohh) until – presumably – the last man has been rescued? What thoughts would go through your head as the cage moved up and away, leaving you alone under tons and tons of rock?

He’s a braver man than me, that’s for sure.

**************

Meanwhile, one of my students writes, “I at last secame to temptation.”

There’s a logic there. If you think that you secome to temptation, then the past tense would be “secame”. Dyslexia rules, KO.