Thank goodness for the Botanics. And some sanity in the world.

 We went to the Botanics again yesterday - it's half-way between Daughter 1's house and ours, and so it's a convenient place for us all to meet up outdoors (as we're told to do). This time we read the information board about the golden monkey (not a chimp - as Daughter 1 pointed out, chimps don't have tails). It's an art work by Lisa Roet, and the board says:

"The sculpture shows a golden snub-nosed monkey. There are five species of snub-nosed monkey. All are at risk of extinction and their future existence is in serious doubt. The five species live separately in temperate and tropical forest areas, with a different diet of leaves, buds, flowers, fruits, barks, lichens and moss. The golden snub-nosed monkey withstands cold better than any other primate (except humans with thermals). This hand-painted, inflatable sculpture is one of a series created to highlight the plight of these increasingly endangered primates."

So now we know. It's previously been on the Melbourne Town Hall in Australia, seemingly. It's certainly striking and makes a good point (or at least it does to those who read the information board). Is it art? Well, maybe. 

And the children played in the dry leaves

and jumped off a tree stump. 

And we admired them doing so, and the colours of the trees. 

From time to time, all the way round, the children suggested that we should go to the cafe and we said, yes, yes, we will once we've done the circuit of the gardens. And we got the timing completely wrong because we forgot that the gardens close at 4 at this time of year - just as we got to the cafe. The kids were astonishingly good about it. Granny fail, however. 

Good news about Joe Biden winning the American election. It must be good news, mustn't it? I wouldn't like his job, though. I'd much rather do patchwork, plant things, go for walks. Which is just as well, since that's about all that's available at the moment. 

The time passes, corona-style

Dearie dearie me - nothing is happening. Nothing has really happened since March, or so it feels. However, I selected some fabrics for a cot quilt for Daughter 2's friend, who's having a baby on her own, through sperm donation. I'm not sure if I think this is a wise thing to do (the baby, not the quilt, which is neither here nor there), but anyway she wants stars on it, and colours shading from blue to green. I had fun picking out lots of fabrics from my stash (I have LOTS of blue and green, as you can see; perhaps I should embrace variety) and cutting them out. 

We went to the Botanics, which isn't newsworthy, though unusually there was a golden chimp climbing up the side of Inverleith House. 

And the colours, just like everyone else's colours, were lovely. 

And by the end of the week I'd got to this stage. 

Ooh, and both yesterday and today we had a viewer for Daughter 2's flat. I doubt if anything will come from either, though. Yesterday's was a nice old lady with her niece. She currently lives in a two-bedroom flat nearby so... why? She liked the size of the main cupboard and asked if there was anywhere to hang out the washing. (No.) Today's was a lovely young mum with her equally lovely four-year-old. She said it looked nicer than it did in the pictures and was really quite spacious, but also that they too live in a flat nearby and only have a balcony so it was difficult during lockdown and they would really like a house with a garden. Daughter 2's flat has a bit of communal grass along a bit from the back door but it's not a private garden. So, hmm. However, you never know. Perhaps even now someone's looking at it on line and thinking, hmm, that's a cool bathroom and I really like the cushions they've styled the beds with. You think? 

Fortunately we're still allowed to have the Edinburgh grandchildren in the house, which we really appreciate. 

Here we are again...

I'm still slowly sorting out archives. Here's my dad's Christmas card to my mum, in the late forties, when my brother was around but I was yet to make an appearance. It says: "Thank you for the lots of funs / Thank you for the jolly buns / How nice to be living with / You and [brother's name] Smith!" This is very characteristic of my dad, who was a huge brain and sometimes very choleric but could also be fun. 

Here are the two younger granddaughters dressed for Hallowe'en. How we miss them. 

We're not allowed to post pictures of Middle Granddaughter but she's not exactly recognisable here. 

I got out my knitted ghosts. One must keep up traditions. I bought them at a sale of work some years ago and am fond of them. 

Oh, and here's the third granddaughter - or in fact the first - slightly Hallowe'enised. 

We're still allowed to have them round, though not their parents, which is a bit daft really since the children are far more likely to have picked up the virus at school than their parents are at home. But ours not to reason why... etc. 

Little Granddaughter in London sent me a dictated letter. It says, "Dear Granny, Dis is a picture for you. It's a tree and a balloon in da sky. I'm going to nursaweee today. It's a bit sunny but it's not raining any more. I'm going to do a trick. I put my hands on the floor and my legs up. It's a good trick. Lots of love from (Little Granddaughter)."

 And here's the balloon in da sky. 

England is about to be almost fully locked down again from next Wednesday midnight, and I imagine that our Great Leader will follow England's suit shortly, after a decent pause to make it look as if she's being very independent. 

It's all very dire. 

On a brighter note, one of my choirs had a sing not on Zoom yesterday. The musical director organised us to meet under the covered walkway of a hotel just outside the city. We sat two metres apart, only 15 of us at a time (he had two sessions and not everybody could come) and as it happened it was blowing a hoolie so that any germs must have got whisked away - along with quite a lot of the music of those who hadn't clipped it into their folders! They did manage to retrieve the music.  Anyway, it was such fun, though I was sitting right under (well, two metres away from) the conductor's nose and felt as if I were singing a solo to him, which was slightly unnerving. 

(Hello to Pam J, by the way.)

Still the virus time but no moaning today

It was a sunny day on Sunday - but in an Octobery sort of way, as you'd expect - 

so, since we're not allowed to see our adult family indoors, we went to the beach at Gullane - not far from Edinburgh. It may look balmy in this photo - 

but it wasn't. It was jacket weather. But you know what children are like: you set them down somewhere and they immediately begin to play. 

They had a lovely time. 

Meanwhile the adults took it in turns to go for walks along the beach (to keep warm.)

These people are not us. These people are definitely not me. Still, it's impressive, don't you think? I've swum in this, the North Sea, in the middle of summer, and it's pretty cold then. There's a lot in the news at the moment about how immersing yourself regularly in cold water is very good for you, possibly even warding off dementia. Hmm, well, I'm prepared to risk it. Actually, I shouldn't say this. My grandmother and aunt (her daughter) both developed dementia so it's certainly one of my fears, since there may well be a genetic element.

So that was a lovely day. And then, on Monday, there was an announcement in the paper of the sudden death of one of my friends. It was a huge shock. Nine of who were at school together have been meeting up for lunch for the past few years (it started out as three of us and then others were gradually invited) and this was one of them. Obviously we haven't met since the virus struck, but we've been exchanging emails over the months, and her last email, on September 30, was perfectly normal and cheerful, looking forward, like the rest of us, to better times. Then she died on October 17. I'm so sad for her. She had no children and was divorced - one brother, but none of us knows him. She had a dog, so I  hope the brother's taking him. Of course, 70 isn't a bad age, but she was slim and fit, still working as an editor... . Apart from being sad for her, I was reminded forcefully of the fragility of life for me, for any of us. 

Just last week, I discovered that a girl I was quite friendly with at school, but hadn't kept up with, died in 2012. That was also a shock - not that I knew at all what she'd been doing, but if I thought of her, it was as alive. 

So out of the twenty-eight or so of us in my school class, one died at 23 when she was knocked over by a car, two died of dementia, one died some years ago from cancer, one this year from cancer, and then there are these other two. A quarter of us, already. And that's only the ones I know about.

SO... altogether I think I won't moan today about being restricted by the Covid regulations. 

And here's another reason not to. I've been slowly going through my mother's papers and today read this letter from my (future) father, written from who knows where? but I think maybe Belgium, in February 1945. He was in the Royal Engineers, in bomb disposal and also involved in blowing up bridges when the Germans were coming and making sure they were undamaged if our allies were on the way. He writes: "Life here is so uncertain; one evening one may be sitting in comfort in a nicely furnished room; the next evening one may be crouching in a trench miles from anywhere being shelled and hating it; or one may be standing on a bridge in the dead of night, listening to the guns in the distance and the water gurgling past the pontoons and the cables creaking, carefully checking the vital parts every half-hour to make sure that the bridge is still sound, and then leaning against the girders and watching the moon. And all the time life is so uncertain; for no reason at all, the man one has known and liked for years is suddenly struck down, and is no more, and there's no sense to it... .There's an increased sensitivity to mortality caused by the realisation of how much one doesn't want to lose."

He was 25 and had been in the army since 1939, when he was 19. 

So - no, no complaining from me. Today at least. 

 

Autumn autumn autumn in virusy times

At last the landscapers came and finished the job. Hurray! This was the hedge in August - a twenty-plus-foot long, five-foot wide collection of lilac and random other things, taking up a big space in my not-big garden. 

And here is the space now, taken from a rather different angle, but you get the idea.  It's a bit bare at the moment; give me time. I restrained myself from getting them to leave a big flower bed in front of the new fence because the rest of the garden is actually quite high-maintenance for a little plot (entirely through my own fault) and at my advancing age I don't want to add to the work. They've left enough space in front of it for some spring bulbs and bedding plants. And I might squeak in a small lilac because I do love the scent and I won't be around by the time it gets inconveniently big. 

Ah, autumn. We went to the Botanics today and I took pictures of Ravelston Dykes from the car because it's so pretty at the moment. 

It comes round every year but still makes the heart leap. 

And so does the Botanics. 

There are worse places than Edinburgh to be semi-locked-down - and at least the Botanics are open, unlike in the first strict lock-down phase. 

At last this year I've managed to get a few nerines to flower in the garden, unlike here, where there are lots. Give me a year or two... Maybe in front of that new fence? 

And there are still some dahlias flowering at the Botanics, 

and lilies

and this beautiful acer (I think)

and these pink tasselled things, which are still putting on a show. I can never remember what they're called. 

It still feels as if we're all putting in time, waiting for improvement, but it could all be a lot worse.

I need to start another quilt. 

Ho hum

I am beginning to feel seriously fed up with this virus thing - even though I do know that a lot of people have much worse things to put up with. On Monday I took the Edinburgh grandchildren to the trampoline centre, and with the various necessary restrictions it was all a bit of a faff. The children had a good time, though. 

Then yesterday, Mr L and I had a long walk along the River Almond. It had been very wet overnight, the river was very fast-flowing and it was quite muddy underfoot. But it was good to go somewhere different from the usual walks - it's only a couple of miles from our house as the crow flies but we haven't been for a while because the council have put in traffic restrictions - among many supposedly to encourage us to get on our bikes - which make it more difficult to get parked near there. 

I wanted to see the autumn colours, which have been very good near us, but in fact by the river they were slightly disappointing. Still, we had a lovely walk. 

Here we are crossing Cramond Brig (Bridge), which was built around 1480. It's a long way down to the river at this point. I can't imagine how they built it, but it seems to have worked. 

The sun came out, 

it was mild, and we felt refreshed. 

And today we walked down to Saughton Park, which is past its summer best

but still has a reasonable amount of colour, as in these Michaelmas daisies

and this sedum

these schizostylis (I think),

very late-flowering lupins

and delphiniums. 

It was such a beautiful day, as warm as summer (here). 

Which would have made it a good day for our landscapers to come, but once more, they didn't - or, to be more accurate, they did, arousing our hopes, but they stayed about twenty minutes and then vanished without a word. They were supposed to be laying our turf today. Turf? What turf? I realise that, having been mucked around by our unhelpful new neighbour getting the road dug up (and then filled in again) when they were supposed to be doing the work at the beginning of the month, they're now fitting us in during odd moments, but we're getting very fed up with wondering every day if they're coming. First world problems, I know, but these don't add to the joy of life. 

I handed over the African fabrics quilt to my friend last night, at her door, and she seemed delighted. Which is good. 

I'm becoming more and more aware that we don't have very many more good years ahead of us, when we're healthy and reasonably fit to visit people and places - and here's one of those years, being frittered away. And three of our grandchildren are growing up without us. Ho hum.