Away again!

We've been away again - not really like us except, seemingly, this autumn - this time to Crieff Hydro. We were there in the summer with the family and then the Hydro sent us a 20% off offer so we thought... well, why not have a couple of nights just by ourselves? It's very familiar territory - my family went there for the summer holiday every year from when I was 3 to when I was 12, and then we've been back fairly often over the years with our children, with my parents and my brother's family and then with the grandchildren and other family members. It didn't occur to us till recently that this was the first time we'd been there on our own since our honeymoon! It's only about an hour away and we only went for two nights, so it was very easy: not much packing or planning. 

The first full day, we visited Drummond Castle Gardens, dating from the 16th century, though obviously changed a bit since then. The autumn colours were beautiful - much better than shown in the photos. 

We've been before, but I don't think in the autumn. They're lovely at any time of year. 

These leaves look good enough to eat.

Then in the afternoon we climbed the Knock, as one has to do when staying at the Hydro. This is a hill just behind the hotel. 

I just can't express how much I love this place - the only trouble being that it's steeped for me in nostalgia: memories of my parents, of my small children, of my baby grandchildren - all now gone or different. However, the memories are happy ones. 

My parents' ashes are scattered under one of these trees. 

 

And then the following day, on the way home, we visited Scone Palace Gardens, where autumn was again very lovely. 

We had such a nice time. And we'll be back - I hope!

Richmond

We've been away for a long weekend with our walking chums to Richmond in Yorkshire. There were ten of us, staying in a big house, and we had a lovely time. Most of us have known one another for forty or fifty years, so it's very easy to be with them and we have a routine for catering for these weekends - baked potatoes and salad for dinner the first day, lasagna the second and a restaurant for the third. Sandwiches and fruit for packed lunches and George and Gill make the breakfasts. Simple!

The weather on Saturday was beautiful and we had an easy five-ish-mile walk on the outskirts of the town, via Easby Abbey.

It was built around 1152 and sacked on the orders of Henry VIII - as were so many abbeys and monasteries - in the 1530s, but there's quite a lot of it left (it was HUGE). 

We walked back along the River Swale. 

The next day was a lot harder!

None of us had done this walk before and it was trickier than it looked on the map. 

There was quite a lot of uphill,

a fair old bit of "path" like this 

some walking along beside quite steep drops - this isn't one - I couldn't take any photos for fear of plunging to my doom. We came to Williance's Leap, a memorial for a horse which fell several hundred feet off an escarpment with its rider. The horse was killed, while the rider bounced on the horse and... well, let's say he survived but it was a gory story. So encouraging for those scared of heights (me). 

And then we came down again to the river and we thought, ah good,

but then had to go up again for a while because the river bank disappeared. 

But it was all fine, especially once we were back in the house, drinking tea and other things. Five and a bit miles if it were flat, but there was a lot of climbing and (harder on the knees) getting back down again. 

We had such a good time; lots of laughs and silliness. I feel very lucky still to be able to do such things and to have such good companions to do them with. 

We've agreed to go back to Richmond next year. I hope we're all still alive!

 

Walking and sitting down

We've been back for a week, during which we've been doing all the things that hadn't happened in our absence. On Saturday, we (well, frankly Mr L - I have no sense of direction) led a walk from Dunblane, which is a pretty little town where you'd never expect anything dramatic to happen. Horribly, it was the scene of an appalling gun crime in 1996. But happily it's now more famous, in Scotland anyway, as the childhood home of Andy Murray, in whose honour the pillar box is painted gold (for his Olympic gold medal). 

It was a fairly easy walk, most of it like this, though there were a few ups and downs (literal ones). 

On Sunday we went up to see Son and the Unbloggables. We went for two walks: one in a wood, with bikes,

and a rope swing;

and the other up the hill near their house. Small Grandson for some reason decided to bring a chair with him and had a bit of a rest from time to time. Good plan. Our walking chums are mostly getting on a bit, like us, and when we stop for lunch and often have to sit on the ground, getting up again isn't so easy as it once was. Maybe we should all carry chairs with us. You think?

 

Cities

We have been away - first in Budapest, which we liked a lot,

though after the first (much too hot) day, the weather was a bit overcast. 

This is their extremely fancy Parliament building. 

One reason why it's so pretty and unspoiled-looking, we discovered, is that a lot of it got bombed during the war and has only recently been rebuilt. So it's pretty, but in some ways fake. But still, it's not too big and very walkable, which we liked. 

Then we went on to Vienna, where it POURED. This is the little lane leading up to our hotel. The umbrellas were a portent. 

It turned out that we had timed our visit to coincide with Storm Boris, which caused major floods and several deaths in Austria, Poland and Czechia. So it seems churlish to complain. But we got soaked, several times, and it was also really quite cold. This, above, is the Schoenbrunn Palace, which was very impressive. 

We took refuge the next - which was the wettest - day in the Kunsthistoriches Museum, where we arrived sodden, but which was amazing - a very very elaborate building with lots of Old Masters, including Brueghel's Hunters in the Snow, the star of many a Christmas card. I had always supposed it to be rather small but it's in fact very large, and it was thrilling to stand in front of it and admire all the detail. 

One has heard about the Habsburg Jaw, the result of marrying one's cousin over too many generations, and here you see it. 

I wonder if it was actually worse than the sculptor dared to depict it? If so... hmm.

Then we went on to Prague, where it was again Very Wet. We splashed our way to the Technical Museum, which made Mr L happy. There were trains. 

However, on our last day the sun came out, hallelujah, and we wandered around the Old Town and then went up to the Castle, where we took pretty pictures. 

And after 10 days we came home and have since been busy doing this and that. It was an interesting holiday and we enjoyed it, but there's nowhere like home, really. 

 

Doing things

My baby boy turned 40 a few days ago. How did that happen? I certainly won't be around to see him turn 80 but I hope to stick around till his 50th, when I'll be 84. We'll see... He was a very sweet child, a bit shy, as he looks here. Now he's a GP, husband and father - and lives at some distance, sadly. However, we're going up to see them on Saturday. 

Life's been very busy (when is it anything else?). We had some lovely weather, and Biggest Granddaughter and I had fun blowing bubbles in the garden. 

Then our American visitors arrived for a few days. 

A few months ago I got an email with the subject title "Hello from your American cousin". It wasn't a name I recognised, so I was intrigued. It turned out to be from Jane (under her married name). She and I share a common ancestor who was born around 1800 - my 4xgreat-grandmother, who is also her 3xgreat-grandmother - so we're not exactly closely related. However, Jane's great-aunt lived in Edinburgh and was my lovely Granny's mother's cousin (are you following this?), and we knew her, and through this connection, various members of my family, including myself in 1970, visited Jane's parents' house in Kent, Ohio between the 50s and early 70s. Jane was 11 at the time of my visit. Jane's mother, grandmother and sister also stayed with my parents, I think in the 60s and 70s. Our mothers kept in touch but there really hadn't been any communication between the families after Jane's mother died in 2006.

However, it was lovely to see Jane and her daughter Chelsea. Chelsea is technically the same generation as me, but she's in her thirties - the generations have slipped somewhat. They were visiting Scotland, and finished with a few days with us in Edinburgh. We did the usual tourist things. On Monday, for example, we went to the Castle in the fog and slight drizzle - not ideal for the views of the city from the Castle walls, but we'd pre-booked our tickets so we went. 

On Tuesday we went to Rosslyn Castle, which is now a tourist destination (and on our Americans' list) thanks to The Da Vinci Code - which I have neither read nor seen. Mr L read the book and declared it to be piffle. However, piffle or not, the book and film have been wonderful for the chapel, which featured in them. Previously, it was leaking so badly - and the Earl and Countess of Rosslyn couldn't raise the money to fix it - that a huge plastic roof was erected above it to keep the rain out, and thus it remained for 14 years. In those days, one could just wander in, say ah, yes, and wander out again. 

But now - the chapel gets so many visitors, who pay to visit, that it's all been fully renovated, including the roof. There's now a very nice visitors' centre, with a cafe and shop and various displays, and you have to buy a timed ticket which includes an excellent talk about the history. Amazing! Good old Dan Brown. 

The inside of the chapel is very, very ornately carved, though no one really knows why. It was begun in 1446 by Sir William St Clair, who planned a cruciform church but only got round to having the choir part built before he died, so it was closed off and remains today as a small church. There is the famous story of the apprentice who carved very fancy spirals on a pillar while the master carver was away researching how to do this, and when the master returned, he was so jealous of the beautiful carving that he killed the apprentice. I don't suppose it's true but it's a good story. The chapel was attacked at the Reformation, but remains mainly intact. 

The outside carvings have suffered with weathering over the past 600 years, but are still interesting. 

We also did other things, such as walking up the river and through the Dean Village. The sun shone that day!

So it was lovely to see them, but I now have Things To Do. 
 

Going

Well, we had some good times with Littlest Granddaughter. 

And sometimes the Edinburgh cousins came round. 

And lots of old toys came out. 

And of course we went to the Botanics. 

In the sort-of rain. 

But now Daughter 2 and Littlest have gone home to London, and this is very sad. 

Though I did sit in the garden when they'd gone and read my book. Which was nice, in a mournful way. 

Foolishly, I never expected our children to move away from Edinburgh. Of course I should have at least considered that they might. 

I don't know whether this would have helped, though.