Still with virus restrictions, week 20 - Littlest Granddaughter is in the house

Yesterday we went to a playpark, which was fun,

and did some mildly educational stickering, among other things. 

Today, however, it poured all day, and was windy.

 We ate snacks,

played doctors (my finger was a wiggly worm which needed an injection), 

put a cat to bed,

drew - and many other things, all indoors, which is somehow harder work. She's enchanting, but full of ideas, strong views, chatter, lovely smiles, cuddles, desires to touch everything (and our house is full of things) - and now I'm off to bed, before midnight, which is unusual for me.

Lockdown week 5 - Wednesday

And so the days pass, perfectly pleasantly as individual days, but so uselessly. We went on the golf course again - so, the same sort of photos as ever. It's lovely to walk there and I shall so much grudge giving it up to the golfers once this is all over. However, there will be compensations, such as seeing the family again!

Look! The gates were open because the greenkeepers were mowing the grass. We considered going through them but had already decided to stay on this half of the course, so stuck to our plan. (Not that it was much of a plan... .)

It's so soothing to look at long vistas.

I'm missing the sea a lot, but hills are a compensation. I always think: well, they'll still be there long after we and all of our small sadnesses and disappointments are long forgotten.

That familiar skyline. I'm not a fan of high-rise buildings.

Almost three miles today. Maybe we'll go further tomorrow.

The big excitement of the day was the arrival of a supermarket delivery from Tesco. (Never thought I'd say that.) We booked it on the 4th and this was the first available slot. I felt a bit guilty because we're not exactly old and frail, but on the other hand Daughter 1 and her husband have our car so that they can get their more substantial shopping. And Daughter 2 has forbidden us to go on the bus to Tesco - which would be easy enough, but I suppose slightly risky, in that there are a lot of other people there - not on the bus but in the store. SIL 1 would bring us stuff if we asked him but now we're quite well provided for a while. Which is just as well, since I've tried a few times but there are no available future slots, from Tesco anyway.

The children keep in touch with lots of WhatsApps. Biggest Granddaughter (7) got her mum to take a photo of her and said, "Send this to everybody and they'll believe how great adventures a girl with a heart full of love and adventure can have." She's a hoot. Daughter 1 says that she's full of little pep talks such as, "Just try, Mummy! Every success starts as a failure!"

I wonder what we'll do tomorrow... . Oh yes, much the same as today. It's all very lovely and easy but I wish we could all be together. At least Mr L and I are very lucky to have each other.

Lockdown week 3 - Wednesday

Every day is similar. Not unpleasant; quite pleasant really, if it were just one day.  At first I decided to sit in the garden for a little while to read my copy of "The Oldie" magazine, which is usually quite interesting and amusing. See above.

It was beautiful outside and the flowers gave a comforting feeling of normality in a very abnormal world.

This is brunnera, or perennial forget-me-not. I don't know if it's actually any relation of annual forget-me-not, but the flowers are very similar. My younger aunt gave me this, years ago. She had a three-acre garden, and I've spent lots of time getting rid of things that she gave me and I innocently planted. You should never accept plants from people who say, "Oh, this does so well - I've got lots of it. Do have some" - unless you too have three acres. However, this doesn't spread too much, though it does seed itself a bit. And it's lovely and flowers for ages.

Clematis.

Polyanthus and hyacinths.

More polyanthus.

Our walk today was only to the supermarket. It's not a very interesting route, but we went along the river for a bit.

There was a queue, with young people in high viz jackets patrolling it, but it moved fairly fast. Only one from each family was allowed inside. Most things were there - lots of toilet paper (though I didn't buy any) but no flour. Who are all these people frantically baking? Parents of small children, I suppose. We're going to have a generation of bakers in the future.

And then home again, somewhat burdened.



We're lucky that this thing is happening to us in spring. I hope it's not still happening in autumn.

I so miss the grandchildren, not to say their parents.

But I've started cutting out the next quilt, and quilting the completed top. Thank goodness for quilting. It gives me the illusion of progress.

Fourteen years ago, Daughter 1 and Son-in-Law 1 got married. I started my blog earlier that year, so it's a mid-teenager now. This is the strangest anniversary they've ever had.

Lockdown week 2 - Monday

We did some gardening this morning - Mr L isn't a frequent gardener but he attacked the ivy - a constant battle. After this we felt the need of one of these, as illustrated in a Sunday supplement yesterday.

It's a fountain of youth, as painted by Lucas Cranach the Elder in 1546. You go in the left hand side, ancient, wrinkly and worn-out, and come out on the right, rejuvenated and full of oomph. I've requested this water feature for our garden.

We decided to go for a slightly shorter walk today (because of the gardening). Here are the Pentland Hills again, whither I frequently raise up mine eyes.

Oh, how springy it is - this is not my garden.

We've very often walked round the outside of this public golf course but this time we walked over it - because as far as we know, it's closed to golfers. It's not so scenic but is spacious and pleasant for a walk. Above are the Pentlands again.

It looks easier to hit balls round than Murrayfield, where we were yesterday. Much flatter.

This is looking back at where we were yesterday. The trees are just coming into leaf. I wonder what they'll be like once we're out of lockdown....

Arthur's Seat again, maybe looking a bit more like a sleeping lion from this angle.

Almond (?) blossom.

Magnolia stellata, just coming out.

And a nice pot of pansies outside our front door.

Daughter 2 didn't have such a good day yesterday. Two-year-olds, while enchanting, are also exhausting. She sent us this sample of conversation:

"Mummy build a mountain. NO NOT DAT MOUNTAIN. I not want it wit cushions. Build it wit blankets. NO NOT DAT BLANKET! Blanket wit [t]winkle stars. No no no no. Not dat way. De udder way. NO NO NO de udder udder way!! No no I no want it!!"

[Daughter 2 builds mountain.]

"I take all cloves off. Slide down mountain on tummy. NO MUMMY!!! I don't want it hold your hand. I want to do it ALL MYSELF."

Which she does, and bumps her head.

Etc.

She's usually lovely!

Walls

I've now cut all the tumbler shapes for the middle part of the quilt I'm making for my friend - these are all from the shirts and pyjamas of her late husband. It did seem a bit odd, handling his clothes, but she was keen for me to do it and she's a lovely friend.

And... the annual photo of my amaryllis - watered for 360 days of the year when it's a potful of green leaves, all for the triumphant five days when it's glorious.

Big Granddaughter went to a climbing wall party the other week, so was keen to try it again. So SIL 1 and I took her and her brother. This place is bonkers - see that person up there? She was a young woman. She climbed up there, foothold and handhold, foothold and handhold, removing one hand from time to time to clip herself on to the next hook. Mad!!! Very brave, looking at it another way. It was VERY high, much higher than it looks there.

But then, can you see Big Granddaughter???? Yes, there she is, at the top, having gone foothold to foothold, handhold to handhold up there. She did it lots of times, on different walls. The boy at the bottom is Big Grandson. He (wisely) never got above head height before deciding to come down again. That's my boy... .

This was another thing. You had to crawl - or some bigger kids just stepped - from pole to pole. She went right to the top, which is about twice as high as she is here - and then the way to descend is just to launch yourself off and the harness lowers you down. Theoretically. (Well, it did. But I wouldn't have trusted it.)

Then we came home and did lots of Heads, Bodies and Legs. Much more my idea of fun.

She's an avid reader. Son used to get The Beano when he was little and I kept his collection. She's about to be seven. Time whizzes past.

Today we visited friends and they took us to Paisley Abbey, where we'd never been. It's quite impressive. 

Someone had done a nice time line about its history. 

I'm not sure what my favourite castle is. You?

Oops indeed. The choir area got rebuilt only in the late nineteenth century.

It's a lovely building but it would take a bit of filling - I doubt if it's often standing room only these days.

Yet more pictures

More from the archives - my rather handsome father-in-law and my (perhaps less striking) mother-in-law. Sadly he died in 1984, when Son was 12 days old. Granddad said, when he first saw Son, that he'd always wanted a grandson. He'd been tactful enough not to say this when we had two girls first. And then he took ill and died. Very sad. And she died in 1992. Poor Mr Life.

I found a diary that I kept on a French exchange in 1967, when I was newly 17. It was a simultaneous exchange, so that the partners were in the other's country and weren't there to amuse each other. This weekend apparently wasn't the most successful occasion. We'd gone to the family's country cottage, where there was nothing at all to do. The parents didn't seem to be getting on with each other, though Richard, the little brother, was very nice. 

On Saturday we went for a town walk with our walking group. We went along a cycle/path till we got to the Queen's Park and then went round our beautiful city hill. It was a lovely day.

Then we had coffee at Holyrood Palace, Her Maj wasn't there. She has a few problems to sort out, poor soul. 

A few days later Mr L and I were back, this time to see the Leonardo drawings at the Queen's Gallery. The portrait on the brochure is of him, by a pupil,

as is this one. Like my father-in-law, he looks like quite a handsome chap. (Sorry about the reflected spotlights.)

The drawings are amazing. This is a study for the head of Leda when she was about to be seduced by the swan. The finished picture fell into a ruinous state and was destroyed in the 1700s. Hmm.

This is a map he drew of a town near Florence. He paced the streets and took bearings from a tower in the central piazza and then constructed the map by geometry. It's apparently very accurate.

(Reflected spotlights again.)

A horse. Such movement. The very essence of horse.

A cat. Such stillness. Such catlikeness. (More spotlights.)

He had all sorts of projects that he sketched in his books, most of which he never finished or in some cases doesn't seem to have started. (We're all a bit like that...) I wonder whether he died (at 67) frustrated at these unfulfilled plans or if the pleasure was in the planning and in some cases he never really intended to carry them out? - such as an encyclopedia of botany or a treatise on anatomy, many sketches for both of which are in the exhibition.

This is our parliament building. I don't think it's very attractive. I wonder what Leonardo would think? 

This is me, drawn by Middle Granddaughter. I don't look like a model. Well, sadly, I don't look like a model. But how cheerful I am.