Ups and downs

I was dusting this photo yesterday and thinking about the people in it. The girl on the right is my Granny – Mum’s mum - the young man is her brother and the lady on the left is her Auntie Jessie. Granny’s mother died of TB when Granny was five, and her little sister also had TB from a baby and died at fourteen. When Granny's mother died, Auntie Jessie, her father’s sister, left her home in Edinburgh and went through to Glasgow to look after the three children and keep house for her brother. Yesterday I looked up how old Auntie Jessie was when she did this, and it turns out that she was 32. I had always vaguely thought that she was older. When Granny was 17, her father remarried and Auntie Jessie was redundant – but I suppose she was still only 44 – not much older than Daughter 1. And she’d brought up three bereaved children and nursed one of them when she was dying. She must have had some backbone.

I do remember meeting Auntie Jessie but I only thought of her as an ancient person – which indeed she was. She died in 1957 at the age of 89, when I was 7. I wish now I knew what happened to her when she came back to Edinburgh but I’ve no idea and there’s no one to ask. Sadly, Granny’s brother was gassed during WW1 and died in 1920 at the age of 27.

Well, that was a cheery story, wasn’t it? My Granny, however, lived till she was 85 in reasonable health and was a very very lovely person – totally grateful for everything she had, and very content with her lot (even though she was married to my rather grumpy grandfather). 

Nothing particular is happening here except a bit of sewing of quilts for the bunk beds in the study. Yesterday, Big Grandson went with his father and Mr L on a tram outing - to the airport on a tram, back into the centre of town and then back here on a bus. As you can see from his cheerful expression, he considers this a satisfactory use of his time. 

Meanwhile Big Granddaughter and I did some abstract painting - at her request - so much easier than trying for realism.

and some jumping. Well, she did. She likes leaping around, though I don't think she'll ever make the Olympics. 

Poor little Littlest Granddaughter in London has been unwell all week. It makes me so sad that I can't easily pop down to help! However, she was better today and said she wanted to go to a party. There was no party to go to, but Daughter 2 fished out a parcel left over from pass-the-parcel at Littlest's own party in October, and they played that. Guess who won? 

Then they made party decorations for Chinese New Year. 

Our microwave died on Thursday - it failed to heat what I'd put in it but instead made a nasty burning smell. Well, I cannot count the number of times since then that I’ve gone confidently towards it with something I was planning to heat up. And it’s still only Saturday! Talk about a creature of habit. I’ve thought at different times that I would heat up soup, plates, a cool cup of coffee - etc. Tonight I decided to make an apple pudding that I’ve made for nearly 50 years The last time I did it, I tried pre-cooking the apples in the microwave instead of in a saucepan, which was quicker and involved less washing up. You’d think it would have taken me less than 50 years to come up with this, but no. Making this pudding is a bit of a fiddle because you separate the eggs and beat the whites in a different bowl, but tonight I thought, well, it won’t be that much bother because I’ll do the apples in the microwave again. Hmm. Then I tried to soften the butter that you have to cream with sugar and almonds – in the microwave. I really never realised that I used it so much.

My friend can now clench and unclench her previously-useless left hand, which is such good news. When she was first in hospital, I wrote her a letter every second day (an actual, paper one, because she finds manipulating her phone quite difficult). It turns out that she really likes getting my letters and said she wished I could write to her twice a day! This might be a bit much, but I'm now writing every day. I deliver them to her house and her husband leaves them as he leaves after a visit, so that she can read them when he's gone. I don't think it's the brilliance and wit of my actual letters that she likes so much as just knowing that she's not forgotten. I like writing and it's nice to think that I can do something to cheer her up a bit. It was a month yesterday that she had her stroke and it probably seems much longer to her. She and her husband are keen walkers and last year walked 1,200 miles! I doubt if we managed half that. It must be so frustrating to be stuck in a hospital bed. 

Ah, the ups and downs of life. 

 

More snowsnowsnow

We've had a few beautiful days. On this one, we went up on the golf course and it was really lovely, if quite hard work, trudging upwards in deep snow. 

But worth it

for the colours 

and the general exhilaration of being among them. 

I'm making progress with the photos, indeed getting towards the end of the initial sorting-out. The experience is mixed: it's lovely to see the family history (this is my father with his two sisters) but also wistfulness-inducing. 

Sledging with the Edinburgh grandchildren, again on the golf course. Annoyingly, one of the new sledges we had sent for lasted 20 minutes before...

it broke. 

Yesterday we went down to check Daughter 2's Edinburgh flat and then walked along a cycle path, an old railway line, which had been cleared of snow - unlike the pavements, which are the lethal, icy result of trodden snow. Luckily it's much milder today so with any luck, the snow will melt and we'll be able to linger outside a bit more. We're still not allowed to meet with others inside unless for caring purposes. I'm looking forward to getting into the garden, with spring flowers. 

I'm wondering what to do with all my younger aunt's work references. I wonder why she kept them - maybe because they say nice things about her. Would descendants be interested in what people thought of their great-(however many times)-aunt? Maybe. The trouble is that once something's been kept for, in the case of this one, 70 years, it acquires a slightly sacrosanct quality. And by themselves they don't take up a lot of room. But then, nothing does by itself. 

I can't wait to be finished with this archiving and to be allowed (by me) to make a quilt. That would be such therapy. 
 

The virus and stuff

We walked around the city centre today, for a change. There were some other people around, but not many, and there were far, far fewer parked cars. Which was, frankly, an improvement. 

This, by the way, for anyone who reads Ian Rankin's Rebus books, is the Oxford Bar. It's closed, of course. 

It was rather dull, but at last the ice has all melted, which is good. 

In the little streets behind the main streets there are a great mixture of buildings of different ages. 

Quite a few buses were still trundling around with one or two passengers. 

Ho hum.

We went to the Botanics yesterday - it's still open, thank goodness, although our great leader is muttering about further restrictions. (The statistics are not encouraging - though hugely better than, say, London's.) She'd have been muttering more loudly if she'd been there yesterday. 

We're not supposed to meet even outside in groups of more than two people in total (excluding children under 12) from more than two households, but there were quite a few not adhering to this - though frankly I think it would be hard to pass on the virus outside, in a large, quite empty area. 

I've probably posted this before, but I came across this photo again in my bid to impose order on the archives. These ladies are our grandchildren's great great great great grandmother and great great great great great grandmother, which I do find quite mind-boggling. The older lady was born in 1829, in the reign (just) of George IV. 

I’ve got all my parents’ and also my Norfolk aunt’s photos (not to say ours) to deal with. I'm writing the names of the people on the back of every photo that I can, and there are a lot of them! - and sorting them into categories. I have an envelope full of photos of as-yet-unidentified Boyds - my granny was a Boyd and was the third youngest of 11 so my dad had 28 first cousins and they all looked much the same, or at least they look the same in small black and white photos - the men especially because they tended to go bald quite young. Quite a few of them are familiar to me from other photos, a few of which have been written on the back by earlier family members, so I'll eventually get them all together and try to match faces with names. Because my granny was the third youngest, most of  Dad's cousins were much older than him so I met very few of them, which doesn't help. The second youngest emigrated to the US and her descendants are almost the only ones we're still in touch with - those were the people we were planning to visit in April. The very youngest was killed in WW1, without issue.

 One question is, of course, whether my descendants will really care which of my dad's cousins was Tom and which Willy Boyd. Maybe it doesn't matter, but I feel I should try. 

This is a really good picture of one of them. They all look very like this and share names too: lots of Toms, Willys, Jameses. So helpful. 

The children are not hugely interested in their GGGGG Granny at the moment, but I'm sure they will be later. I would LOVE to see a photo of mine! Mind you, one has a lot of 5 x great grannies (32, is that right?) and I imagine the gene pool gets fairly diluted by the time it reaches this far down. Still, I think I have that particular GGG Granny (of mine)'s mouth - which isn't very good but at least it's better than her nose.

 So… just plodding onwards. Quilting was great therapy for my spirits so I’m missing it. But not as much as I’m missing the kids. And my friends. And... you know. Stuff.