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.

 

Decluttering again

This week's decluttering: about 400 books, which I hope a charity is going to come and collect today. They're mainly big hardbacks - I read lots of biographies, printed diaries and letters and other non-fiction books. Don't get me wrong - we still have another 400ish, which I will reread if I live long enough. 

Also some items from the cutlery drawer. Why did we need 4 bottle openers (I've kept one)? And two nutcrackers? - I think we cracked nuts the last time when the children were small, at Hallowe'en. These are the family heirloom ones, argh, but we support a charity that collects metal to recycle, so... off they go. Also two melon ballers? Have I ever balled melon? 

This is the truncheon owned by William Menzies (pronounced, in Scotland, Ming-ess), who was married to Mr L's great-aunt Agnes. He was a village postmaster and presumably had it to discourage marauders in the tiny, beautiful, peaceful village by Loch Tay. Son and family were here for the weekend and Son has taken it away, not - I assume - to chase difficult patients from his surgery.

Yesterday we did a recce for a walk we're leading a week on Saturday. It was in the Borders, otherwise known as the Southern Uplands, and there's a reason for that. 

It was about 6 and a half miles, lots of it - most of it - going up hill and down again. 

It was beautiful and we had perfect spring weather. 

But it was quite tiring. 
 

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.