Stravaiging

Our daughters and their families were with the other grandparents for Christmas this year - our son lives at a distance and doesn't have much time off, so we never see him on the actual day - so we were all by ourselves... violins. It was... peaceful. It would have been a bit pathetic if we'd not had each other. But we did. 

A couple of days before, we walked in the Botanics. 

Here's my favourite tree, the bald cypress. It is indeed bald at this time of year, but it's beautiful once it gets its leaves back. Here's my favourite old chap standing beside it. 

There were also what I'm choosing to regard as signs of spring. 

Or possibly autumn...

No, spring. 

I've had a terrible cough over the festive season, so in a first for him, Mr L marzipanned and then iced the Christmas cake!!! I didn't want to spread my germs on it. 

Look, artistry. 

Yesterday we felt like a change of scene, so instead of walking locally we took a bus up town and wandered about a bit. This is the Castle from a slightly unusual angle. 

This is the Grassmarket which, when we were young, was a disreputable place full of chaps down on their luck and too fond of the bottle, but which is now quite trendy.

Climbing up the Vennel steps.

Looking down them at the Castle. They've, bizarrely, become a tourist attraction because of influencers who take pictures of them at night in the rain. I would not myself want to climb them at night in the rain. You see a lot of atmospheric photos of wet Edinburgh on the internet. It does look quite shiny but it gives the impression that Edinburgh is particularly wet (it isn't) and that walking around in the rain, in winter, is fun. (It isn't. Edinburgh is also quite windy.)

Here's a bit of the Flodden Wall at the top of the Vennel. The wall was built in the early 1500s. See the arrow slits for shooting at invaders. Most of the wall is no longer in existence. Likewise the invaders, I hope. 

For the first time in my life, I've just this minute wondered what "vennel" means, and according to the internet, it's a narrow passageway between buildings (Scots English). Which is accurate in this case, though it doesn't explain why in Edinburgh, full of vennels as it is, this is the only one called that. 

Here's an example of incongruity along by the Meadows. No one can afford to build buildings with twiddly bits any more because builders are well paid, unlike in the past. Which is good. But I do like twiddly bits. 

Bits of the town were thronged with tourists, following along behind tour leaders who were telling them stuff about Harry Potter and Greyfriar's Bobby. Why were they here in December, on Boxing Day, instead of at their own firesides or perhaps sunning themselves in their gardens in the sunny climes they may come from? 

Then we walked down the Mound to the bus stop, struggling through crowds waiting at the bottom of the hill for the Christmas markets to open at 11am. 

In all this spare time, I finished quilting the 104 butterflies on the border of the rainbow quilt for Littlest Granddaughter. I was quite glad not to have to do 105. Now for the binding. I don't really like binding, or not the machining bit. Wish me luck. 

And Happy New Year when it comes. Surely the world will have sorted itself out by next December? One can only hope. 

 

The skeleton

I've been down to London again and am now back. Littlest Granddaughter enjoyed going to school in her Christmas jumper (on Christmas Jumper Day), with presents for her teachers in a sack. 

Here she is playing light sabres (I think) with her mum. 

Here is Snowdrop the guinea pig. 

And here's Daughter 2 wrapping some presents. 

I've been reading a book by Doris Grumbach, an American writer. I can't remember how I heard of this book - "Extra Innings" - but must have seen it recommended somewhere and asked for it for my birthday. It's a memoir of a year, written when she was 75 (I am also 75), but it talks quite a bit about her previous book, "Coming into the End Zone", which she wrote when she was 70. She clearly didn't like being 70 and said so extensively. I haven't read that book, but she mentions that a lot of people criticised it for being excessively gloomy. The book I did read was slightly less (I think) negative. I quite enjoyed it, and being the same age, am sometimes aware, as she was, of the physical discomforts of the ageing body. However, I was amused to read on the internet that she actually lived to 104. I can't think how grumpy she must have been by then! Who knows how long I (or anyone) will live? but it did remind me that one shouldn't try to think too much about when one will die. She wasted a lot of time, it appears, waiting for death, when it was actually quite far off. 

This bit amused me, though. She had a habit of seeing jobs advertised and thinking, oh, I could do that. I find myself doing the same sometimes, and then I come to my senses. As she says, "There is not time to become anything else. There is barely enough time to finish being what you are." Mind you... she had nearly another 30 years, as it turns out, so perhaps a career as an assistant librarian lies ahead of me after all ...

This is a plastic skeleton that I got in a cracker (do Americans know about crackers that aren't biscuits?) in, I think, 1962. We were having Christmas lunch out with my grandparents and for some reason were speculating as to what the cracker toys might be, and I said, "Maybe a skeleton." Which was a very odd guess, but turned out very surprisingly to be right.  For many years it lived (do skeletons live? possibly not) in a dish on my dressing table and then it passed on to Daughter 2, who still has it. After nearly every sentence in that paragraph, the question Why? would be quite appropriate. 

Anyway, now I'm home and missing her a lot. Still, mustn't be a grumbler, like Doris Grumbach. 

 

The things of Christmas

I have been SO busy arranging the carol concert - but it all went well. We made £6000+ for our funds - well, minus quite a lot for expenses - and £1000+ for charity, so that was good. We probably won't sell as many tickets for our next concert in May, so a little cushion of profit will help to fund that one. Then we do an all-for-charity Come and Sing in June and after that my 3-year stint as chair will be over nearly two-thirds done. Hurray. 

Meanwhile, other people have done other things. Littlest Granddaughter made a robot (above) for her best friend - designed by her and partly made by her, though her mum helped. 

She and her mum and the other grandparents also went to see the show her dad is in, in Birmingham, and she sat on a throne after the show. You can see how she's posing. I hope she's not going to be an actor. I mean, we need actors. But corporate law probably pays better. 

And Biggest Granddaughter played the part of a charger in a panto at church. I didn't see this show so don't know the context. 

I'm off down to London again tomorrow to visit Daughter 2 and do some dishes. When I get back, I'll start concentrating on things such as decorating the house, currently a bit bare. 

 

No rest for the reasonably good

You have no idea (or maybe you have) how much organisation it takes to make a big choir run smoothly. How did anyone do it before email? Or perhaps the real question is: was it much simpler before email - where every decision has to be run past the seven members of the committee? I, as chair, do most of the stuff. It would be easier just to be a dictator. 

It's even easier just to be a back-bencher, as I am in my other choir.

The picture above is my final (I hope) arrangement of the seating for the concert, just in soprano1, alto 2 etc order. The peculiar shape is because of the constraints of the church where we perform. For the previous two concerts I allocated specific seats to specific members, and of course this meant that some people weren't sitting beside their friends. Sigh. This time I'm trying a free-for-all (what could possibly...?) apart from some people who need to sit in the front, or whatever, for various reasons - mainly of infirmity. I do tend to think that at the point when I can't walk very well (for reasons of age, I mean) I'll probably bow out of the choir. I mean, I say that now (at 75). I may feel differently when it's me!

Son and family came for the weekend and we went to the Botanic Gardens light show with Daughter 1 and her offspring. Here we are standing in a tunnel of fairy lights. 

And here are the children toasting marshmallows. Which were a total rip-off -three big marshmallows on a stick for £7.50! This included a dribble of sauce, post-toasting. But the children enjoyed it. 

It was very pretty. 

And a bit wet. 

Another day they went to a climbing wall / trampoline place. Here is nimble Medium Granddaughter up a climby thing. Rather her than me. 

 

And in London, Daughter 2 took Littlest Granddaughter to see her daddy's company doing a children's show. Her daddy, meanwhile, has been in Birmingham most of the time since the beginning of October, doing a Christmas show, and will be there till mid-January. Daughter 2 has been doing a lot of single-parenting. 

And now I must go and write more Christmas cards. Still too busy!
 

Clothes pegs and sundry events

Big Granddaughter (12) is writing (and drawing) several graphic novels - as you do - and when she was here last weekend she decided to make a small "Worms and Shakespeare" booklet. No idea what inspired her - well, Shakespeare, obviously. I give you some extracts. 

I like the ruffs.

Littlest Granddaughter was taken by Daughter 2 to visit the other grandparents in Nottingham, where there's an impressive wintry display at the local garden centre. Son-in-Law 2 is still away at the Birmingham Rep for another six weeks. D2 is a noble person. 3 months of single-parenting. 

And I ... have been busy with stuff like making four Christmas cakes, writing cards, organising my choir's Christmas concert... you know the sort of thing. 

British traditional Christmas cakes are rich fruit, ie with lots and lots of sultanas, raisins, chopped peel, glace cherries, almonds, so the mixture is very heavy and stiff. For, I would estimate, 48 years, I struggled to make the cake tin lining stay in place while I filled the tin with this concrete-like, sticky mixture. Then a few years ago I had the idea to use clothes pegs. You can remove them when the tin is half-full because the weight of the cake holds the paper in place. 

I was telling this to a group of friends the other day - mainly to find out if everyone in the world did this, and only I was stupid enough never to have thought of it (no, it turned out) - and one of my friends, a highly intelligent person, said, "Do the clothes pegs not melt in the oven?"

I'll put it down to temporary absent-mindedness. 

 

On! On!

How is life so busy? How do other people manage to post every day? Anyway, I went down to London again on the train - nice views, see above - to try to be slightly useful to Daughter 2 while her husband is at the Birmingham Rep. I'm not terribly useful really, since Littlest Granddaughter reasonably enough prefers her mum to do things for her, rather than her elderly granny. However, I collected Littlest from school one day, did some dishes and cleaned out the guinea pigs. 

This is Chingford, where Daughter 2 and family now live. It's really quite nice - it doesn't feel at all like London, but rather like a small town. Which it was, of course, though has now been swallowed by London. But just along the road from D2's house you're in the Essex countryside. 

I did do a small amount of gardening, though it was rather cold. Can you see me down near the bottom of the garden, doing some minor weeding? I'm the black lump near the slide, or as we'd call it in Scotland, the chute. 

The way home was brightened by kittens! 

Very cute. 

Son and family came for the weekend I got home, which was lovely. Then,  after rather more socialising than I had time for early in the week, I had to get stuck into the church magazine, of which I'm the editor (it's not finished yet), and quite a lot of choir stuff. Mr L and I took our banner up town to attach it with many cable ties to the railings in the street outside the church where our concert is, St Cuthbert's, as is normal, but we then got an email to say that the council, which owns the railings, has decided that no one is allowed to put up banners any more. So the next day we had to go up and unattach it, but the church admin chap has allowed us to fix it to railings outside the church door, which is invisible from the street. This won't be as good, but it's something. 

Considering the ghastly things with which the centre of Edinburgh is currently cluttered - a big Christmas market which cuts off the view of the Castle, a huge Ferris wheel, a terrifying spinny thing that sends people round and round AND UP AND UP - the council is being a bit pot-calling-kettle-blackish. However, there are worse things happening in the world. And how. 

Meanwhile my other choir, the one of which I'm (thankfully) not the chair, is having its concert a week on Saturday. I've missed quite a few rehearsals through being in London, so I should really do a bit of practice. Not today, however! On! On!

Cleopatra

Littlest Granddaughter had a wear-your-own-clothes day (as opposed to school uniform) to raise money for Children In Need. So she decided to go as Cleopatra. "They're my own clothes," she reasoned. Well, true. 

On Saturday, we had a lovely walk with our walking friends. One of us always takes a photo of us on any available bridge, so I took a photo of her taking a photo of us. 

It was the walk along the river that Mr Life and I did the recce for a few weeks ago. Mr Heron was there this time. 

It wasn't so pretty as when we did it before, because most of the leaves are now off the trees. 

But we had a great time anyway. Good company, beautiful day and lots of laughs, so the 6 miles passed easily. And then we had coffee at the Visitor Centre. 

Tomorrow I'm back off down to London to spend time with Daughter 2 and Littlest Granddaughter while Son-in-Law 2 appears at the Birmingham Rep.