Lockdown week 13 - Brio day

We had a lovely outdoor visit from the Edinburgh family. Big Grandson asked that Grandpa make the indoor bit of a Brio layout and then books were used as ramps to run it down the steps, along the back of the house and up the side.

We have a lot of Brio.

The layout extended into the sandpit, with a buried railway tunnel.

It was hot. 

And today was the longest day. I took this photo at 11.10 this evening. Sunrise tomorrow is at 4.26am and the birds start singing well before that. I do love our long summer days. The down side is that we have short winter days, but I always feel it's worth it, for the light summer nights.

Cheese scones (there was a request)
3 ounces butter (sorry - I've never changed to metric)
12 ounces self-raising (all-purpose) flour
pinch baking powder
Some milk to mix - about 3 fluid ounces, maybe
8 ounces grated cheese - this is quite cheesy - you could use less

Rub in the butter to the flour and baking powder. I have to admit I do it in the mixer because I don't like getting my hands sticky. Add the cheese and enough milk to make a wettish dough which sticks together. Roll out on a floured board and either cut with a knife or use a scone cutter to make about 8-10 scones. Brush the tops with milk. Bake in a hot oven - 200C - for ten or so minutes.

Lockdown week 13 - Friday fabrics

Thank you for your very kind quilt comments. You really shouldn't be so impressed. My kind of quilting is very easy - just time-consuming and fiddly, with quite a bit of ripping out and adjusting. The wonderful thing about quilt-making is that you don't have to finish things off neatly on the back, because it's all hidden once you put on the backing fabric. I do enjoy it, especially during lockdown, when it's given me a sense of purpose. And I enjoy making something unique - made up with ideas I've pinched from other quilts I've seen online, but not exactly the same and of course with different fabrics. Unprecedentedly, I've made three quilts this year so far. My normal speed is two a year, but there's been so much less family-visiting since March, sadly.

We usually see the Edinburgh grandchildren on a Friday afternoon - well, I say "usually" - we used to in the pre-lockdown days and have been doing so again when the weather has been good since Stage 1 started. However, it was damp this morning and Mr L had to go to Daughter 2's Edinburgh flat to let in a carpet fitter. So we decided to make it tomorrow instead. Can't wait!

Stage 2, which we have theoretically started, isn't terribly different from Stage 1, but garden visitors are now allowed to go into one's house to visit the bathroom, which will help - and also one can go more than 5 miles to visit family - though not in their house. So we hope to visit Son and the little ones before too long. As for Daughter 2 in London ... not for a while, alas.

I made cheese scones in Mr L's absence as a reward for his recent hard flat-work. Mr L is very fond of a cheese scone and I like them myself. We pronounce "scone" in Scotland to rhyme with "gone", not "moan" as the English do (or some of them, anyway). Perversely, we have a town called Scone, which we pronounce "Scoon".

It dried up in the afternoon so we walked along the river.

Everything is very lush.

This looked so beautiful to my eyes, with all sorts of shades of green and different leaf shapes, and the pink comfrey and white cow parsley and yellow dandelionish things - but somehow my photo doesn't really capture it.

And then up the steps to the closed Gallery,

saying hello to the swans in the pond, and home. 3 miles or so.

I've promised to make a quilt for a younger friend who's half Zambian and half Scottish. She's very beautiful, with perfect skin and huge, lovely eyes. And she's asked me to use these Zambian fabrics, which will suit her style perfectly. But they're a bit of a challenge to me, being so different from any fabrics I've used before. I really don't like orange! or much purple, or red and green together in large quantities. I'm much more a pastel or dark colour person rather than a bright colour one - or at any rate, lots of bright colours together. I'm a bit non-plussed but also quite excited.  Only six fabrics, too... is this enough, I wonder, even with some plain ones too? Hmm, food for thought.

It's good to have another project, though, and my friend is so sweet and is finding life a bit difficult at the moment - indeed, has found it so most of her life. She was brought up in a smallish town in the west of Scotland, where her family was the only mixed-race African one, and the recent events in the US and here (with the controversy about statues to people who made their wealth from slave-owning) have stirred things up for her. So I'm delighted to do it. But it needs some consideration!

Lockdown week 13 - quilts and cake

A day of two halves. In the morning, my friend came over and I gave her the quilts I'd made from the shirts of her late husband. Our coffee date was actually in the garden; she just came in for the photos. When we were discussing what she'd like, she looked at photos of ones I'd made and choose the tumbler shapes, quilted hearts and half-square triangle borders.

It's quite tricky to get the quilt the right width so that the triangles meet neatly at the corners - I've only done this kind of border once before - but I was quite pleased at the result here.

I'd found a £20 note in this pocket, so I sewed the pocket on the back and put the note in a little envelope.

And then I made a second quilt, because there was so much shirt fabric. This one was much quicker, though. So few corners to get right.

Then in the afternoon we went down to Daughter 2's Edinburgh flat and Mr L worked very hard. He put up the curtains and new shade so that the living room looked smart, and then we moved all the furniture from the bedrooms into the living room (thus ruining the effect) and also the washing machine into the hall, and he lifted the vinyl in the kitchen - so that we can get new carpets and vinyl laid tomorrow.

So that was less fun. But never mind; it's progress.

Lynda asked for the cake recipe. Here it is.

Coconut cake:
3/4 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup fresh grated coconut (only I didn't have any so used desiccated)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 and 1/4 cups self-raising flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
10 tablespoons (ie 6 ounces) butter
1 and 1/2 cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs

Heat the coconut milk (though I didn't bother and it was fine). Cream butter and sugar, gradually add eggs, coconut milk, coconut, vanilla, then mix in flour and baking powder by hand. Bake in two 9-inch tins for 20-25 minutes.

I then used chocolate butter icing but the recipe suggests making -

Fluffy Coconut Frosting.
1/2 cup water
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large egg whites
1 and 1/2 to 2 and 1/2 fresh grated coconut
Bring water to boil with sugar, cover and cook for 1 minute without stirring.
Uncover and boil, stirring frequently until mixture is hot enough to spin a thread when a little is dropped from a spoon, or about 230F. Remove from heat. Whisk egg whites to stiff peaks. Still beating, add sugar mixture in thin stream. Continue till mix is fluffy again and holds peaks. Assemble cake with frosting between layers and put frosting on sides as well, then sprinkle coconut over the top and sides.

(You can see why I didn't bother with this. I didn't have any more coconut anyway but, well, chocolate and coconut are nice together and I'm a busy woman.)

Lockdown week 13 - Tuesday and Wednesday

I seem to have fallen into the habit of posting about what we did yesterday, so in keeping with this ... tradition... yesterday I made two coconut cakes using the tinned coconut milk left by Daughter 2's tenants and some desiccated coconut from my own cupboard. Waste not, want not. Then, since I didn't have any coconut left, I iced them with chocolate butter icing. I froze one and then we had a slice of the other and I froze the rest. It was rather good.

I baked them in my newly-cleaned and not by me oven. Such decadence, to have one's oven cleaned by an oven-cleaning chap. But he did it so nicely.

Then we went for a walk to, and round, Saughton Park. I do love flowers, herbaceous ones particularly. Look at the length of those borders.

And the exuberance of those poppies.

It was quite warm so we sat on a bench in the shade for a bit.

Sage and two varieties of perennial geraniums.

Knautia and not-quite sure, with more can't-quite-think in the background.

Such as this lovely white thing. It looks like an astilbe but the leaves are wrong. Must do some research. Anyone?

And a mixture of geraniums and poppies and sage and grasses of some sort and ... etc.

Then we walked home along the river.

I love this little pebbly beach. You can just imagine what it was like when it was surrounded by open country - not that long ago, really - 100 years, maybe.

And this bit - I think possibly planted with wild flower seeds, or perhaps a happy accident - ox-eye daisies, red campion and viper's bugloss, yet another of the borage family.

Just over three miles.

Today we didn't go anywhere because we were waiting in for the washing machine man, coming between 1 and 5. In fact he came at 3 minutes to 5. But then the washing machine, which made a horrible bang just as it was finishing its spin on Monday, which is why we summoned him, seemed to be ok. Very embarrassing, oh dear.

We were going to go for an evening walk but one way or the other, didn't. Tomorrow we may be going to enter Phase 2 of lockdown loosening. Not quite sure what this would entail but I'm hoping that the Edinburgh family may be able to come into the house. Wouldn't that be exciting??

Lockdown week 13 - Monday - impatient

That's interesting - Blogger again refused to upload photos just now, but when I tried a third time, it agreed without demur. Hmm. Not that any of my photos are world-shatteringly important. This is Mr L in Daughter 2's flat, which is now becoming quite nice. Not too much to do to make it sellable, though one of the things has been getting a plumber to put in a new bathroom. We have a tendency just to accept the first quote for things but in this case, we got three quotes - or tried to. There was £1000 difference between quotes 1 and 2 and then plumber 3 kept putting off the day when he might manage to quote, so last night we gave up and went with plumber 2. But he hasn't said yet when he might actually do the bathroom.

Among the many unwanted things that the tenants left behind was this collection of spices, herbs and sauces. One of the tenants was a chef. I brought it all home and disposed of most of it, The garden has now been sprinkled in various herbs. I do use dried herbs very occasionally but we all know what would happen if I just put these in my cupboards to join the other ones.

Yesterday we had a day off the flat and went up Corstorphine Hill. The Rose of Sharon is coming out now.

This is actually quite a steep path, though it never looks it in photos. Maybe I ought to take the picture from ankle height. The walls are quite high at this point and though we (or at least I) couldn't see over them to the parts of the golf course on either side, there were a lot of "tok!" noises as golfers did their thing.

And on the downward slope of the hill, it's still pink - so many foxgloves

and the campion, still flowering after many weeks.

Though lockdown has been horrible in some ways, I'm so happy to have had the leisure to spend so much time on the hill. Normally we go up a couple of times a year (why not more?? - we're not that busy) and I've never happened to be there, as far as I remember, during this floral time. It's been so interesting seeing the gradual progression through the seasons from bare branches and yellow gorse to full leaf and pinkpinkpink.

Still desperate to see the distant grandchildren, though. Nicola Sturgeon, our First Minister, is due to make an announcement on Thursday which might open things up a bit, but I doubt that she'll be encouraging us to drive up north or get the train down south to see our much-missed little people (and their much-missed parents). Patience... not my strong point.

I've now finished my third lockdown quilt and my friend is coming to collect the ones for her and her son on Thursday, weather permitting, for garden coffee. Now time to get back to the archive-sorting.

Lockdown week 12 - Saturday

Hmm, that's funny - Blogger is being peculiar this evening. At first it wouldn't allow me even to start uploading (is that the word?) photos and then it sort of half-started but then stopped.

Ah well, I don't have any very interesting photos from today anyway. Both yesterday and today, we've been spending time getting things organised in Daughter 2's Edinburgh flat, which has been rented out (and messed up by some of the tenants) for some years now. She planned to sell it in the spring and her tenants left (leaving lots of their grotty stuff) but then lockdown happened.

We managed to get rid of lots of the stuff just before everything ground to a halt, and then, because the flat was empty, a painter was allowed to paint it and then a flooring company was allowed to come and sand the floor. But because we didn't have our car it was difficult for us to go down and do things.

Anyway, a carpet company has opened up so yesterday we went there in our new (to us) car (we needed an appointment) and ordered carpets for the two bedrooms and vinyl for the kitchen and bathroom. And today we went to the flat and did various jobs such as refitting the washed loose chair/sofa covers which have been in our house since March; jigsawing together the table which the tenants unscrewed and put in a cupboard (sigh) - luckily Mr L is a patient man who can think in 3 dimensions; cleaning, clearing and so on. Daughter 2 has decided to get rid of various other pieces of furniture which the tenants put wet mugs down on and ruined - so that's happening on Tuesday.

And so on. It's time-consuming but satisfying - we oldies haven't been able to be very much use to anyone over this strange period so it's nice to feel productive. We'll get the flat back to looking nice again and then - well, will anyone be buying flats???

Of course, architect Daughter 2 would very much like to be doing this herself. But she's stuck in London. However, the internet is a great thing so she's ordered curtains, a new hob, a new bathroom suite and tiles and so on. And we've been consulting her at every turn.

I only went on a brief local walk when we got back. Mr L had a little snooze on the sofa instead. He did most of the difficult work at the flat.

Lockdown week 12 - Friday in the garden

Yesterday evening I was doing some gardening at 10 at night. One of the best things about living here is that it's light, at this time of year, till about 11. So after admiring the sunset sky, I wandered about taking pictures of the flowers. All the colours are slightly warmed up by the pink light, but as you can see, it wasn't at all dark.

Clematis and self-sown foxgloves.

Perennial geraniums, alliums, foxgloves, peonies.

Yellow day lilies.

Pink berberis.

The lupins and irises are almost over - more white foxgloves.

And this climbing rose, which is actually crimson and not the scarlet it looks here.

Today it was windy and somewhat chilly, but Daughter 1 and SIL 1 nobly brought the children round and we sat in the garden while they played. They're so busy!

It was so lovely to see them. Our Brio train set is getting well used. Whether Big Grandson will be content to play with it in the sitting room again, now that he's used to a bigger space, is still to be seen... .

Lockdown week 12 - Thursday - a little outing

Well, today was exciting - by lockdown standards. At the beginning of all this, we lent our car to Daughter 1 and family. Normally they borrow it once a week to do their shopping or whatever, and then we get it back by each bussing half way and doing a swap. But with things as they are, and buses not a terribly good idea, the only way to share it would be for SIL 1 to drive it over and then one of us to drive him back (it's about 6 miles) - but this isn't possible while maintaining a 2-metre distance. 

So we decided last week that the easiest thing would be for us to buy a little runaround - and here's Bluebell, delivered today.  So - heady thrill - we drove somewhere else for our walk today. It wasn't far - the Cammo estate - but a bit too far to walk there and back again and also around the estate. 

This is (or was) Cammo House, built in 1693 and surrounded by beautiful grounds with many rare plants. .

This is all that remains of it now - the steps up to the front door and a few of the walls on that level. Sadly, it was demolished in 1977. The last owner was an eccentric chap who had lots and lots of uncontrolled dogs and who was burgled several times. The place was a wreck, and after he died someone set it on fire so the council knocked it down. Now the estate's managed by the council as a semi-wild park.

This is a Wellingtonia - a giant sequoia - which is obviously not a native tree. They were a status symbol in Britain to show off one's wealth. Mr L stands there for scale.

This was once a formal garden.

It's all rather sad but on the other hand, it's a lovely place to wander.

This was the water tower for the house.

And this was an ornamental canal, one of the views from the house.

It's slightly alarming, but also rather comforting, that nature takes over so quickly once people depart the scene.

(My sister-in-law, in south England, has tested positive for Covid-19! She seems to be fairly ok, though, and my brother has tested negative - so far. They've been locked down, so they can't think where she caught it.)

Lockdown week 12 - Tuesday and Wednesday

We went up the hill yesterday and looked down at the golf course, like Adam locked out of paradise.

Still, the view's better further up the hill.

Look at the golfers,

totally unaware that we're looking resentfully down at them. (Not really. They do pay to be there.)

On the hill, foxgloves,

foxgloves and more foxgloves. The willowherb is growing fast and will soon add their pink to the scene.

Littlest Granddaughter sent us both a letter today. Here's Mr L's:

And here's mine:

Actually I think the picture of me and the red sheep is on the back of this pink letter. (It requires quite a lot of imagination.) But on the back of the painting it says:

"It was a wainbow. Den I painted eveewhere. Now it a cloud. Gem [nursery teacher] say, "Where is your name?" and write it again."

She writes remarkably well for 2 and a half...

Oh, how I miss her and the northern grandbabies. Still, I suppose every day takes us nearer seeing them all again.