Back home again

Bit of a long silence. I've been staying with my husband's cousin for a week, because she's single and lives alone and has just had a hip replacement operation. This, above, is the view from my bedroom window in her house. She lives not far from us. It's been a bit... odd. It's not easy to need help if you're normally independent, and it's not necessarily easy to do things for someone who normally lives alone and who definitely has their own systems for doing things. Anyway, I'm glad I went and I'm glad I'm home! 

Frustratingly, it was beautiful weather while I was there, mainly sitting around talking, and my garden, somewhat neglected while we had visitors in August, needs a lot of tidying up. We did a bit of gardening earlier this afternoon but then the rain came on quite hard, and though it's nice again now, everything is wet and I don't feel inclined to go out again. I'm sitting here listening to Brahms's Song of Destiny, which our musical director goes into raptures about but which isn't yet hugely gripping me. However, I need to learn it, since we're going to sing it in a concert in the spring. It's growing on me.

Minimalising Monday didn't happen this week because I wasn't here, but I was casting about yesterday for something to dispose of when I came across this photo of my paternal grandmother. Son-in-Law 1 kindly put it through some magic thing and produced the version below, which is much better, though she had white hair by the time this photo was taken. I think, but don't really know, that she had light brown hair as a young woman. 

This was her passport photo for going abroad with my missionary aunt and uncle to be looked after by the hospital in which my aunt was a doctor, because, sadly, she had dementia by then. She was getting confused by her early seventies, as far as I remember, and later my aunt had dementia too. I think I'm all right so far... I didn't know her well because she moved down south when I was four or five. I remember that she saved the combings from her hair to plump out her bun, which struck me as a cunning idea when I was a small girl. 

We took a walk in the Botanics this morning, which were lovely as usual. 

It's getting a bit autumnal. 

These rudbeckias were making a fine show. 

And my favourite tree, the bald cypress, is still in full summer leaf. 
 

Back to normal things

Minimalising Monday - some outgrown dressing-up outfits - charity shops won't take them but lots of people on Facebook Marketplace were keen. 

And a fairly rubbish bingo game bought some time ago at a child's request - I just put it in the bin. It's fiddly and probably some of the bits are now missing. Lots more toys to rationalise, though...

On Saturday we went with the walking chums over the Forth Bridge on a train (hence the somewhat blurry photo) to do the walk that Mr L and I did a recce of the other week. It was perfect weather - warmish and sunny, with no wind. We walked from Kirkcaldy to Dysart Harbour and back. 

A lovely day out with friends. 

It's getting a wee bit autumnal, though... Sigh. 

August

Long time no blog, though this may be a good thing. 

We've had a busy August, with Daughter 2, Littlest Granddaughter and her guinea pigs staying with us for most of it and my brother and sister-and-law staying for a week. Here is Littlest making a concoction. 

And here are various of us in the garden. I have no idea what was happening there. 

Guinea pigs again. 

My brother, sister-in-law and I went to see Son-in-Law 2's show in the Fringe Festival. 

Drawing. I think she was drawing...

this, which is a cat, a dog, a mouse, a tree, a branch, an owl, a bird, a butterfly... and some other things, all wearing funny hats and watching one another. She signed it with the first letter of her name and then a squiggly grown-up signature. 

We had a trip to the museum.

And now they're gone, and I feel, as ever, forlorn. But the house is tidier. On the way home to London on the train, she knitted a tummy-warmer for her elephant. 

 

Years

The solar eclipse happened, and Littlest Granddaughter, who with Daughter 2 is staying with us for most of August, saw it through the pinhole camera that her mother made out of a cereal carton. Well, we all saw it. The sun looked tiny inside the cereal box, but it definitely had a bite out of it. Littlest Granddaughter was not particularly impressed, even when we told her that it wouldn't happen again till she's 78 or something. 

She decided to make "an old, one-eyed teddy with a patch". So we did. She designed it, which is why the teddy has unusually pointy ears, but you don't argue with Littlest Granddaughter, at least not about something unimportant. The artist's vision, and all that. 

She found, and tried on, the dress that I wore on 18th December 1967, when Mr Life was my partner at my sixth year (ie final year) school dance. I was 17, he was 19, and this is when our romance began. The dress was, obviously, too big for her but not as much too big as I would have expected. She's very tall for nearly 9. However, I washed it not long ago and I think it shrank. 

Today we went to the funeral of the husband of one of my friends from my school-teaching days. I've known her since 1973 and the group of us English teachers who made friends then are still friends and meet up fairly regularly. Brian was 80, so it wasn't a tragedy exactly, but still, it's sad. The funeral food afterwards was by the river in Haddington; quite scenic. My lovely granny was born in a house just beside this bridge, in 1895.

Carpe diem, that's the thing. 

 

Crieff again

We've been away for a long weekend with all the family, minus Son-in-Law 2, who's performing at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh. Son and family were staying in Crieff Hydro, while the rest of us were in a lodge in the grounds. We celebrated Medium Granddaughter's 10th birthday. 

I've been going to the Hydro since 1953, but I'm probably not the longest-standing guest. It's the sort of place that people keep going back to. 

Son and family did a hair-raising tree walk / zip wire thing. I could hardly look. I don't know where Son got those genes from; not me or his dad. However, they survived - indeed, seem to have enjoyed it. Argh.

And we went for walks and the kids did things in the adventure playground and most of the party went swimming a lot. It was very nice. 

On the way home yesterday, Daughter 2, Littlest Granddaughter, Mr L and I visited Drummond Castle, which has amazing formal gardens. The old bit of the castle dates from about 1490 and there's a newer mansion, in which the family actually lives when they're there, dating from 1689 but much altered over the years to suit contemporary tastes. 

There have been gardens here since the 1400s, but this layout was started in the 1830s. 

The upper photo shows most of the very formal bit, and you can see in the lower one how the box hedges make the main shapes, at the moment filled with antirrhinums of various colours, and lavender. On the sides of the garden that aren't shown are lots of topiaried trees. It's stunning. And very labour-intensive, I'd think. 

The area round our lodge was also scenic. 

And, as we always do, we climbed The Knock and admired the best view in the world. This is possibly a slightly biased opinion. 

Breaking no bones

On Friday we did another recce for a walk, this time in the Border country, starting at Kelso and walking down the River Teviot. We suspected that it might be a bit too long. Ten or fifteen years ago, the gang was doing 7-9 miles; now we tend to do 5 or 6, or 7 at a stretch. This one looked like 7. But we thought we'd investigate. 

It was a very pretty walk, though these lovely pink flowers belong to the horribly invasive Himalayan Balsam, and boy, it's invaded this river bank. 

It was a lovely day, if a trifle hot in the sun. 

And some of it was reasonably easy walking. 

But after a while, the path became very narrow and also sloped a bit from side to side, with lots of stones and roots. Hmm. Our progress was therefore quite slow. So after a couple of miles we decided that the whole walk - which is a circular one, down one side of the river and back the other side - would take too long, and we retraced our steps back to Kelso. After the last walk, where I tripped twice. we're being more cautious. Our ages range from mid-sixties up through the seventies and eighties, with one - the fittest of us all - being 95! 

Back in Kelso, we visited Kelso Abbey. It was built around 1128 and was a huge monastery. But its proximity to the border with England meant that it suffered from repeated English invasions, and in an attack in 1545 it was more or less destroyed. All that remains is this fragment of the Abbey church, which was in use till a new church was built in 1771-3. 

And then we went for coffee and cake. It was a good day, and we broke no bones. 

 

Seven miles

August is going to be busy with Festival visitors, and we're leading a walk in early September, so we did an experimental recce on Friday. We got the train to Kirkcaldy (pronounced Kir-coddy) and admired their civic flower arrangements. 

Then we walked down to the sea through Kirkcaldy and on to (a bit of) the Fife Coastal Path, 

which was scenic. We took the high tide route because... the tide was high. 

We reached Dysart Harbour, where we had lunch. 

It was quite a warm day, though intermittently cloudy, which was good. It would have been a hot walk otherwise. 

I was intrigued by this shed covered by, I assume, names from former boats. 

Then we retraced our steps.

Not sure what this little lookout tower was for, apart from the obvious. 

As we walked through Ravenscraig Park, we detoured to Ravenscraig Castle, which was built for Mary of Gueldres in about 1640. 

It used to look like this. 

But now looks like this. We scrambled about a bit - well, maybe not precisely scrambled, but went up and down some rather precarious steps and steep, slightly slippery paths to get to the back of the castle. Some people never learn. 

And then we went back down into Kirkcaldy, noticing this building as we passed. It was built in 1692 and was in distinctly better repair than the castle. It's now a medical centre. 

We think we did about seven miles, and the road up the hill through the town to get our train was a bit wearisome. Fortunately, the art gallery, with its very nice cafe, is just adjacent to the station, so we went there for a short collapse and refuel. It was a good day, though.