Out and aboutery

Life continues - thankfully - and the garden blooms. 

We went for a walk through The Meadows the other day. The Meadows is a big park in central Edinburgh, but it was once, yes, a meadow, where sheep grazed. My grandfather grew up nearby, in a tenement flat, and used to play football here. Nowadays it's often full of students, since this is the student area. We'd never actually walked along this particular path before, and it was quite interesting seeing The Meadows from this angle. 

It's obvious that the tenement-dwellers who live around here still see it as their garden. 

There are some new student flats overlooking this path, and we liked Professor Polar Bear, keeping an eye on his territory. His mortar board has slipped somewhat. 

There's a little community garden. It's all rather nice.

Yesterday, we went up to visit Son and family. The journey was fairly horrible: it was raining, and there were quite a few lorries throwing up spray. I'm very phobic on motorways and never expect us to get to our destination alive. However, we did. On this occasion. 

Because of the weather, we went to a play place. Spectators have to sign a waiver, I suppose in case they decide to have a go on the equipment, injure themselves and sue. The girl in charge told Mr Life and me that we needed to sign the waiver, and then she hesitated, looked at us and said, "Oh, don't bother. I'll trust you not to go on the equipment. " What could she have been implying??? 

Mind you, Son did have a go...

 

Flowers

It's all about flowers at the moment. 

I can't bear to listen to the news in any detail. 

Why on earth are people (well, it's men, isn't it? - a few, horrible ones) still behaving in this uncivilised way, when we are so clever about so much?

Anyway, the garden blooms on, regardless. 

These poppies self-seed and I love them. 

Along the river, things are also in full bloom. This is cow parsley or something of the sort. 

Wild geraniums.

Elder flowers

and wild roses. 

And in Saughton Park, a shortish walk from where we live, the herbaceous beds are at their best.

 

We're lucky to live so near. 

More poppies. So delicious.

Heuchera in the foreground. 

And I can't remember what this white fluffy thing is in the foreground, but the pink flowers are peonies. The white-flowered plant is a member of the cabbage family, I think? It's very pretty, anyway. 

So that's life at the moment: doing the garden, making a quilt, going for walks in gardens and nature, socialising with friends - very peaceful. If only the whole world could enjoy the gentle things of life. 

 

Doings

So in brief: we went to the Tirzah Garwood exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery - interesting, since we'd seen the Eric Ravilious (her husband) exhibition there some years ago and I've read her memoir.

Her art was very varied. 

and in various media.

I had a lovely visit to a school friend's house, and met her partner. M and I were never particularly close at school but we were friendly, and I always liked her. It's been so nice to reconnect. 

And then we came home and Littlest Granddaughter also came (to her) home and reconnected with her guinea pigs, which we had managed to keep fed and watered. 

Apart from that, it's been a flowery time. These mecanopsis were at Branklyn Gardens in Perth, which we always like to visit. 

And we met up with a very old friend, also M, and went to Little Sparta, about an hour's drive away, which is the garden of poet and artist Ian Hamilton Finlay. We've been meaning to go for ages, and when M - who lives in London - said that she would like to visit it, that was the spur for us to take her. M's mother and mine were friends in London during the war, specifically during the Blitz, and her mother was my mother's bridesmaid. 

It's a very pleasant garden

with various art installations and inscriptions, some rather mysterious. 

And then, at home, all is very floriferous.

A neighbour (whose front garden is mainly paved, with some neatly trimmed small bushes) said to me yesterday that she liked the wild effect of my garden. 

I know what she meant, but it takes a lot of work to achieve such a wild effect. 

And that's me just about caught up with our doings, though frankly I don't really know why I do this...
 

Hope

I'm very busy with stuff for the choir of which I'm chair - we have a concert, a come-and-sing and a social to arrange, and I'm not that good at thinking of three complicated events at the same time. However, I'm doing it as best I can. Time will tell if it's enough... .

Meanwhile, it's been lovely springlike weather - though frankly we need the rain - and we took a walk down to the local park. It's not quite in its spring glory, but it's still lovely to stroll round. By next week there will be lots of these alliums waving in the breeze. 

There's some pleasing topiary -  

not up to the King's standard, but still rather jolly. 

A bird!

And quite a lot of colour. 

It's a historic place, but then I suppose everywhere is, really. It's just not all mentioned in King David's Charter of 1128. 

The world news is very depressing, but then there are flowers, such as this little bunch from the garden. And, this holiday weekend, a lovely visit from the UnBloggables, who had a nice time ice skating and going to the Minecraft movie with the Edinburgh Two on Saturday, and visiting the Edinburgh Two at home and then going to an adventure playground with friends on Sunday. We visited Saughton Park, but the playpark bit, this morning. And now they're away and I'm making choir arrangements. 

So we just have to keep singing, keep gardening (haven't had time to get back to the quilt yet) and hope that someone, somewhere out there, will see sense.
 

Snowdrops in the cold

Yesterday the weather was chilly and damp, and we swithered (good Scottish word meaning that we kept changing our minds) about joining the walking friends - hoping, frankly, that someone would decide to call it off. However, no one did and we pulled ourselves together and went. It remained cold and damp but didn't actually rain, so our virtue was rewarded. There was a smirr in the air; nothing more. This is another Scottish word, which means water particles just hanging, like a very fine but invisible mist. It's a handy word for our climate. 

We walked along by the sea. Can you see it, or the land on the other side? Well, quite. 

We passed the oldest house in Portobello.

and walked on into Musselburgh, where this old phone box has been adopted by the community as a sort of - what would you call it? A shelved plant stand. 

Then we reached Inveresk, a pretty little village, where we visited the garden of Shepherd House. This is a 18th century house which has been lived in since 1957 by a couple, Sir C and Lady F, who have transformed the garden into a thing of beauty, and they open it to the public to raise money for charity - but also, I suppose, because gardeners love to show their plants to other enthusiasts. They're now well into their 90s. 

They have something like 150 varieties of snowdrops, including this one that I really love, with a yellow, um, bit. I thought it might be the calyx but have just looked it up and it isn't. 

I blogged about this garden last year, when we also came to admire the snowdrops.

Sir C, the owner, came out and walked round the garden with us. He's a real pet - 96 and still full of beans. The garden is full of quirky touches, such as this sheep. 

He's better with hellebores than I am. 

This is a window in his summer house. 

He very kindly said we could eat our lunches in their conservatory, which was excellent because we were quite chilly.

So I'm very glad we conquered our laziness and went. It was a lovely day out with nice friends.