Trees and flowers

This week's decluttering was easy: Son's cricket bat from school, palmed off on him when he came for a couple of days with the children, and...

the reins that we used to put on our grandchildren when we took them for a walk. I don't think our 15, 13, 10, 9 or 7-year-olds would really fit them now, but my newish-granny friend wants them. Done!

Saturday was a perfect autumn day and we went with our chums to Dalkeith, to walk round the Palace grounds. We got the bus past the oldest house in Portobello, dating from the 17th century

and enjoyed the beach views. 

The grounds of Dalkeith Palace are extensive and are now a public park. The Palace was the seat of the Dukes of Buccleuch (pronounced Buck-loo) from 1642 till 1916. The original castle was demolished, and replaced by the current building on the same site between 1701 and 1711. 

There are many very old trees, planted by the dukes, or rather by their gardeners. 

These come from all over the world. Money no object. 

There's the palace. 

It was all very pretty. 

Here's George, our television gardener friend, beside a tree that's believed to be 1000 years old. It still looks pretty healthy. We had a lovely day. 

In London, Smallest Granddaughter makes Saxon brooches for homework. I think her architect mum may have had a hand in the designs. 

And, though we've had a few light frosts, the garden blooms on. For now. 

Back to normal things

Minimalising Monday - some outgrown dressing-up outfits - charity shops won't take them but lots of people on Facebook Marketplace were keen. 

And a fairly rubbish bingo game bought some time ago at a child's request - I just put it in the bin. It's fiddly and probably some of the bits are now missing. Lots more toys to rationalise, though...

On Saturday we went with the walking chums over the Forth Bridge on a train (hence the somewhat blurry photo) to do the walk that Mr L and I did a recce of the other week. It was perfect weather - warmish and sunny, with no wind. We walked from Kirkcaldy to Dysart Harbour and back. 

A lovely day out with friends. 

It's getting a wee bit autumnal, though... Sigh. 

Breaking no bones

On Friday we did another recce for a walk, this time in the Border country, starting at Kelso and walking down the River Teviot. We suspected that it might be a bit too long. Ten or fifteen years ago, the gang was doing 7-9 miles; now we tend to do 5 or 6, or 7 at a stretch. This one looked like 7. But we thought we'd investigate. 

It was a very pretty walk, though these lovely pink flowers belong to the horribly invasive Himalayan Balsam, and boy, it's invaded this river bank. 

It was a lovely day, if a trifle hot in the sun. 

And some of it was reasonably easy walking. 

But after a while, the path became very narrow and also sloped a bit from side to side, with lots of stones and roots. Hmm. Our progress was therefore quite slow. So after a couple of miles we decided that the whole walk - which is a circular one, down one side of the river and back the other side - would take too long, and we retraced our steps back to Kelso. After the last walk, where I tripped twice. we're being more cautious. Our ages range from mid-sixties up through the seventies and eighties, with one - the fittest of us all - being 95! 

Back in Kelso, we visited Kelso Abbey. It was built around 1128 and was a huge monastery. But its proximity to the border with England meant that it suffered from repeated English invasions, and in an attack in 1545 it was more or less destroyed. All that remains is this fragment of the Abbey church, which was in use till a new church was built in 1771-3. 

And then we went for coffee and cake. It was a good day, and we broke no bones. 

 

Seven miles

August is going to be busy with Festival visitors, and we're leading a walk in early September, so we did an experimental recce on Friday. We got the train to Kirkcaldy (pronounced Kir-coddy) and admired their civic flower arrangements. 

Then we walked down to the sea through Kirkcaldy and on to (a bit of) the Fife Coastal Path, 

which was scenic. We took the high tide route because... the tide was high. 

We reached Dysart Harbour, where we had lunch. 

It was quite a warm day, though intermittently cloudy, which was good. It would have been a hot walk otherwise. 

I was intrigued by this shed covered by, I assume, names from former boats. 

Then we retraced our steps.

Not sure what this little lookout tower was for, apart from the obvious. 

As we walked through Ravenscraig Park, we detoured to Ravenscraig Castle, which was built for Mary of Gueldres in about 1640. 

It used to look like this. 

But now looks like this. We scrambled about a bit - well, maybe not precisely scrambled, but went up and down some rather precarious steps and steep, slightly slippery paths to get to the back of the castle. Some people never learn. 

And then we went back down into Kirkcaldy, noticing this building as we passed. It was built in 1692 and was in distinctly better repair than the castle. It's now a medical centre. 

We think we did about seven miles, and the road up the hill through the town to get our train was a bit wearisome. Fortunately, the art gallery, with its very nice cafe, is just adjacent to the station, so we went there for a short collapse and refuel. It was a good day, though. 

 

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. 

 

Walking in the Borders

The day after we drove back from Wales, we led the walk that we did the recce for a week or two ago. 

I should rephrase this, really. Mr L drove back. Mr L led the walk (no one would want to depend on me for a sense of direction). And Mr L had done the recce; I had just wandered along with him examining the wild flowers and admiring the view. 

We've often noticed the phenomenon that a walk can seem quite long and tiring when it's just the two of us, but with the group of friends, catching up with the gossip, the miles just melt away. It also helped that on the proper walk we cut out a detour that we'd done on the recce, up a very steep path to a loch and back again. The group walk was six and a quarter miles, so the recce must have been nearer eight, which is another reason why it might have seemed more tiring...

There was a lot of upping, and the main downing was through this very steep field. As you can see, it was steep in two directions - down and sideways - which added to the pressure on the elderly knees. However, this was fairly near the end.

This week's decluttering haul: two (more) books; three wine glasses that don't match the ones we use; a big mixing bowl and flan dish, neither of which I really use (mainly because they were at the back of the cupboard and others were more easily reachable); a cheese grater (I have another); a Wedgwood ash tray (we've never smoked, and our smoking friends gave up years ago); a plastic cup; a set of mirrors for putting things on that I think we used once, at an offspring's wedding 20 years ago; a purse that's too bulky for my handbag and was barely used; and my mother-in-law's crystal dessert bowls. She died in 1992, and I kept them, thinking at that stage that one of our children might like them. But our children don't really have the sort of dinner parties where crystal bowls would feature. And I don't think I've ever used them. So I'm being hard-hearted. Someone will love them.