Wanderings. And stuff.

Very clever and helpful Son-in-Law 1 has solved my photo problem by creating a Google Photo album for me, which allows me to add photos to my blog. So - sorry about that - here are lots! 

We got the bus on Friday to Haddington (above) - a small (but growing) town not far from Edinburgh - and had a nice walk through the town and then along the river to the Amisfield Walled Garden, where we'd never been before. 

My lovely granny lived in Haddington for the first five years of her life, so I always like to go there and say hello to her toddling shade. 

Here's a more-than-usually successful bit of meadow planting in the middle of some housing. 

The path along by the river was flat and quite easy to walk along, 

with views over fields of crops. 

And the garden, when we reached it, was lovely. I think it's mainly (entirely?) staffed by volunteers, who do a grand job. 

There weren't many visitors. It used to be part of the garden of a huge house which was built in the mid-1700s and demolished in 1928/9 because the family had other houses and the upkeep was too much. We will certainly return. 

On Sunday we had lunch with the Edinburgh family at Swanston and then climbed the hill to work off lunch and admire the views. Edinburgh is a fairly small city and it's not difficult to get out of it and up on the hills, down to the beach or out into the country. This photo looks down at the city. It seems very distant but in fact it's minutes away in a car. 

Hills: so soothing. I to the hills will lift mine eyes and all that. I do this a lot. 

Today we walked to Saughton Park, not far from where we live. It was a sunnier day than it looks in my photos, and rather warm. 

I do so love herbaceous perennials. 

But they're a lot of work, even in my small garden. Here... the cutting down in autumn and spring - goodness. 

Then at last this afternoon I forced myself to get back to the boxes of various family archives, to try to sort them out a bit and hopefully throw some out. I'm not doing very well so far. I keep creating categories of things: Mum, Dad, Mum and Dad, Grandparents - but then this has to be subdivided because I had four grandparents, like everyone else, and so did Mr L - not that his parents left very much paperwork, unlike mine. Then I have some things from my two childless aunts. And lots of lovely cards and things given to us by our children, and their drawings, and the grandchildren's cute drawings. And lots of letters and emails and various birth and death certificates - do I keep these with their owners' stuff, or in a separate category? Etc etc. And the other problems are that everything is a) interesting, so I have to read it again and b) rather sad, because the relevant person is dead, or even if just that part of our lives is over. 

There's a LOT to sort through. I can't see much to throw out, though. 

I'll keep this, though I wonder how interesting it will be for those who never met my grandfather Thomas, eg even our children, let alone anyone further down the line. This is his reference from the army at the end of WW1. It's accurate apart perhaps from the "tactful" bit. He was an interesting man - from a working class family, though his father was a printer, as Thomas also was, so they were literate chaps and I suppose reasonably well paid. He was, as it says, clever - would have liked to be a doctor, though of course never got the chance. He was interested in health and got his family to be vegetarian in the 1930s, which was pretty unusual in those days, though when WW2 came, people just had to eat what was available. 

But tactful... not so much. He wasn't slow to express his opinion of people who didn't share his views. I remember his saying of someone, "He couldn't run 100 yards to save his life" (can't remember the context) in a contemptuous tone - Grandpa himself was very fit and used to be a long-distance runner in his youth. I myself couldn't now run 100 yards either, except slowly and pursued only by, say, a murderous tortoise. 

Future generations, reading this testimonial, might picture some sort of gentle saint. Which he wasn't. He was a decent man, and meant well. But he could be a bit of an old grump. Mind you, as a young man he was at the awfulness of Gallipoli, where he was shot in the hand, so who am I, who have always lived a cushy life, to criticise him for being a bit of a misanthrope? 

Boring post about flowers

Well, it's all about the flowers at this time of year. My own garden (it's Mr L's too, technically, but he'd probably just have grass. Or not even that) needed a lot of attention - all the bulb leftovers had to be removed, or not if they were still green; and the weeds engendered by all that rain followed by quite a lot of sun had to be discouraged; and also all the many, many pots that I plant up at this time of year had to be filled. Why is my smallish garden so labour-intensive? Well, of course because I made it so, when I was in my forties and fifties. And I like looking at it when it's finished, although of course it's a garden and is never finished. I do actually enjoy a bit of gentle weeding. But I'm definitely getting a bit old and achey. Still, use it or lose it, or so I tell myself. 

I saw one of those things on Facebook the other day. It featured a scientist walking along the road, saying that extensive research has shown that there are five words which, if you say to yourself, will improve your mood - whatever that mood is at the time. So of course I listened to the end, and it turned out that these words were, "These are the good times". Would that improve your mood? It surely means, "This is as good as it's going to get". Which, when you're nearly 74, isn't that encouraging. No doubt it's true, but what's the point of thinking that way? I mean, things are fine. But I'd prefer to be 24. Even at 24, I don't think I'd like to be told that that was the best time. It was good, though it was also extremely stressful at times, being a high school teacher in quite a tough school. But there were better things to come, like for example all our lovely babies and grandbabies, not to say a long career of teaching in further education - which had its difficulties, but not nearly so many. 

Anyway, back to the flowers. It's a lovely time of year, with many alliums

and irises

and more irises

and another,

and look at this thalictrum - I only bought it last year and it's wonderful - it's been blooming for weeks. I do have another, much less interesting variety of thalictrum and over the 35 years we've been in this house it's become a thug and is everywhere. However, I won't be here in another 35 years so if the big pink one has spread everywhere by then ... hey ho. 

Oh, another iris. 

Saughton Park, quite near us, is lovely at this time of year. 

It's very allium-ish.

and lupiny

Here are my lupins. 

And then, in the Botanics, lots of lovely mecanopsis. 

So. Flowers. Very cheering. 

I must not start another quilt till I've got back to the archives. And must not die till I've made some decisions about what to keep, and have actually disposed of some of it. My parents both had interesting lives, much more varied and worthy of note than mine (school, university, three different teaching jobs, retirement). So the archives are mainly theirs, which makes it difficult. And then also of course... we have too many photos. Haven't we all? 

 

Nothing much...

Life has been mercifully unnewsworthy for the past week. Mr L is taking the medication and seems to be all right; thanks for your concern. We went to the Botanics and said hello to some ducks,

lots of daffodils

a cherry tree

and a cat.

I did a tiny bit of archiving and came across this photo of my paternal grandparents. I never knew this grandfather, who died a few months before I was born, and this grandmother moved down south when I was four or five, so we didn't see her much - travel wasn't so easy then. And then she sadly got dementia. She was born in 1885, so was 65 by the time I was born and I don't remember her much apart from as a confused old lady. I do hope that her kind of dementia isn't genetic. Of her three children, my dad didn't get it, the older of his sisters did and the younger didn't. So - crossing my fingers. I think I'm now older than she was when she developed it and I think I'm ok so far. 

Then yesterday we went to the local flower show, which is always enjoyable, and out to dinner with friends, also lovely. They have a large house and LOTS of stuff, which always makes me feel almost minimalist in comparison. I mean, I'm actually far from minimalist. But at least my Stuff is either tidily out, to be decorative, or lurking in cupboards. 

 

Relics

Somehow we seem to have got into the habit of just going along the cycle path nearby for our walks - life seems to be quite busy, though just with sorting things and coffeeing with friends and seeing family and so on - anyway, we went very slightly further afield the other day to see the snowdrops in the Cammo Estate. My photos don't do them justice - there are thousands upon thousands. When I think of the forty or so that I nurture in my garden...! 

Here they are, in random clumps all over the place. 

Some of them aren't just the standard single ones, but these fancy double ones. 

The estate is managed in a sort of semi-wild way, and there are remnants everywhere of the grand gardens that were once here. 

This is all that's left of the 1693 house, which was demolished after it was set on fire by vandals and became unsafe - but it had been neglected for years by its mentally-unstable owners. There are also other remnants, such as an ornamental canal, stables and some cottages. 

It's a shame. However, it's now a lovely place where anyone can walk. It's especially popular with dog walkers, which is mildly alarming for non-doggy people, but there's plenty of space for everyone. 

I was interested and touched by Virginia's feelings that I should keep stuff, but really, my descendants (if they're interested) will have lots of other things, eg letters, to read. They don't need my 12-year-old thoughts on Mary Queen of Scots, poor soul that she was. I do know what you mean, though. I would be interested to read my great-grandmother's school reports (though in those days they wouldn't be very informative, I don't suppose). But one can't keep everything. I have so much stuff from my parents, too, who led much more spectacular lives than I have done. 

It's a tricky problem, though. What would descendants be interested in, enough to plough through piles of papers? 

I'm always rather moved by antique programmes in which archives appear for sale - maybe a beautiful portrait of a young man - someone's beloved son - or medals and papers, or photograph albums of a whole family, neatly organised. Presumably the line of the family that treasured these things has come to an end, as can easily happen. Quite possibly another branch of the family would treasure them, but contact has been lost. It's very intriguing and rather sad. We have grandchildren, but who knows what will happen, further down the line? 

And with that, I shall go and have a cup of tea while I wait for a friend to arrive. Her mother and mine were best friends and flatmates in London during the war and went through the Blitz together. Such different lives from our peaceful ones. 

Like an arrow

Continuing - or really restarting - my attempts to sort out bits of historical paper - I came across some photos which weren't in the right place, such as this one, of our children in about 1987. I can't quite believe that they're not still like this. They're so cute.

But elderly life continues apace and Big Granddaughter and I went to the local park. She's lovely too. 

We went on a five mile, between-the-parks, winter walk with our walking friends. Here's our horticulturist friend telling us all about the life cycle of the hazel. 

Daughter 2 is doing a woodworking course, making a stool. 

Back to the archives, here's a postcard to my brother, from my parents (well, my dad really). It says, "In this picture you can see the kind of trams they have in Sheffield. Love from Mummy and Daddy." It's clear where Big Grandson's obsession with transport comes from - though it also comes from Mr L.

And here's something that epitomises time passing: part of the editorial from the 1974 edition of the magazine of the school where I started teaching at the beginning of that school year, August 1973. Clearly the writer shared my feeling (at the time) that 2024 was an impossibly distant date at which time (if it ever came) things would be entirely different. And so they are; and so they're not.

While I'm finding it interesting to look through all these (and many other) things, I regret to say that not many of them have got thrown out yet. But some will. Definitely. Maybe tomorrow. 

 

Time flies like an arrow and all that

A certain amount of not-very-much has been happening around here. In London, by contrast, Littlest Granddaughter has been dressing up as a ... mouse witch, maybe? So fierce. 

I don't think that January in Britain tends to be anyone's favourite month, and around here it's been unusually wet and dreary. However, look - the first snowdrops are flowering, so I shall take that as a sign of spring. The garden's not looking its best (understatement) because all the things that were still blooming, at least feebly, in early December were cut down by the frost and are now piles of brown goo. I shall have to gird my loins and get out there to do some chopping down, so that in a few weeks the spring bulbs will be visible to cheer the wintry heart. 

Our standard walk along by the golf course demonstrates the apparent deadness of the season. But of course there are buds on the trees and fresh nettles and dockens burgeoning at the side of the path.

Yesterday, however, it was sunny, so we did a recce for the February walk that we're leading. It's just a town one, near here, mainly through parks, and Mr L and I are familiar with it, but one has to work out the timings so as to be somewhere suitable to eat sandwiches at lunch time. We usually go to a cafe for coffee, cake and chat at the end of the walk and it's not that easy to find one that will have room for a sizeable group of muddy people at a slightly-difficult-to-predict time. On this occasion we've cunningly organised the walk to end at our house, so there's no crucial timing needed for this.

We walked along the river, which is very full indeed after all the rain.

This heron looked somewhat bedraggled, but I imagine it was enjoying some sunshine at last. 

And on we went, through Saughton Park, with its bandstand.

And along beside the tram line

to the Dovecot in Corstorphine.

This, as I've written before, dates from the 1500s and was built so that the doves that lived in it could provide fresh meat and eggs for the people who lived in the (long gone) 14th century Corstorphine Castle. I'm glad that I didn't live then for many reasons, my vegetarianism being one. I doubt if vegetarianism was much of a thing then. There are 1000 nesting boxes, which are still used by visiting pigeons, but no one now eats these more fortunate birds. 

We established that the nearby St Margaret's Park had benches and indeed picnic tables for us to lunch at on our group walk but then it started to rain (we do not need more rain). So we decided not to walk home as planned but instead got a bus. 

I'm still quilting Little Grandson's quilt but it's not going to be finished by the time we go up to see them on Tuesday. However, not too long to go now. And then I must get back to the archives, which I spent quite a while sorting during lockdown but then abandoned, so that I can't quite remember where I am. But I must make some Decisions. Sorting into boxes is easy enough. Throwing out my parents' holiday albums, less so.