A bit of grump

The main thing that people in Britain are talking about at the moment is the weather, which has been dire since the beginning of the year. Not especially cold - in fact, it's been relatively mild compared to winters when I was young. We've barely had any frost, let alone snow. But it's been damp and grey and depressing - not that I suffer from depression, but even I have found it a bit gloomy. Hence the photo of one of the few patches of blue sky that we've seen. Down south in England, there have been quite serious floods. Here, it's just been dank, with drizzle - very much not gardening weather. I think I've done four short lots of tidying up outside this year, and the garden is very much in need of more. But it's been chilly or raining or both; not tempting. It was faintly sunny yesterday for a bit, and I got out there and did some weeding, but then it rained - not hard, but enough to be discouraging - and I came in again. 

How lovely to find out about Virginia - thank you so much for replying! And also Maureen, who doesn't appear to have a blog when I click on her name in the comments, but who actually does. 

Nothing has been happening here apart from some more cutting out of shirt. And quite a bit of socialising, which is nice but not newsworthy. Although on Saturday I met up with a former student, someone from - maybe twenty or more? - years ago. I must have taught thousands of students in my time. We had 10 or 11 different classes every year, some of them for only 13-week semesters, but some - like the one this student was in - for most of the academic year. She was studying Higher English with the aim of qualifying for going to college to become a primary, ie junior school, teacher. She was at the time a classroom assistant in primary, and felt she was doing much the same work as a teacher for half the pay. I think that she probably wasn't, in that the teacher has to do all the planning and, I assume, most of the marking, and also has much of the responsibility. 

However, this youngish woman was divorced, with two children, and I admired her attitude. Anyway, when the class was over she was keen to keep in touch, which was slightly odd, since she must have known that I had lots and lots of students and couldn't possibly keep up with even a fraction of them. We met for coffee a few times and I rather hoped that it would all die a death. She was nice enough but ... you know. I have friends. When she did qualify as a teacher, she was busy - and at the time, so was I, with work and with the offspring still at home - so the years passed, but she continued to send me Christmas cards, latterly with her mobile phone number and the suggestion that we should meet again. Eventually, I caved in and sent her mine, and we met up. She's still perfectly nice, but she told me everything that had happened in her (somewhat chequered) teaching career from beginning to end, without ever pausing, from 10.30 till 11.45. I was exhausted just nodding and saying, "Oh dear" and "How difficult" and "Well, that was good". After that we had another cup of coffee and there was a bit of a conversation. At the end of our meeting, she said, "We should do this again." Hmm. Not very soon!

There's a lot of winter Olympics on television at the moment. I'm not remotely interested, but am intrigued by the introductory music on the BBC, which is the "Dies Irae" from the Mozart Requiem. "The Wrath of God" - why? I'm mildly irritated by sport, but not that much... .

Right. Better do something more useful. Have a nice week, Virginia, Maureen, Margaret, Jablog and anyone else reading this.

Have to keep busy...

Things are quietish around here. I've spent this afternoon happily and brainlessly sewing together strips of shirt for Mr Life's quilt - much easier than making stars. (The squares at the bottom do have four stripes, but the fourth, plain blue one, merges with the blue background.) Other than that, there's been a bit of socialising, a book group (that's mainly socialising too, though we do discuss the book...) and various walks. 

We still can't reliably get out of the street in the car.

For example, this was the entrance to our driveway this morning. 

However, fortunately there are plenty of buses. 

I'm sitting listening to Mozart's Vespers as I write this, since this is one of the pieces that one of my choirs is singing in May. It's always disappointing that doing this doesn't implant the music in one's brain as well as one would hope. It all sounds extremely familiar as one types away, but it's actually much better to follow along with the score. One of the other pieces we're doing is Britten's St Nicolas. I'm not a huge fan of Britten, especially the movement in this in which there's a famine and some boys are kidnapped and pickled (urgh!) for food. Nicolas rescues them in the nick of time, but still. As a squeamish vegetarian, I don't enjoy this movement. I've sung it before, but not for years, though I did remember about the pickled boys (trauma!). The piece does have some jolly bits with great shouty choruses from the men during storm scenes and so on. 

I wish that the kind people who comment on my blog all had blogs themselves. Looking at you, Virginia and Maureen! Then I would know more about them. Still, why do I have a blog? I'm just a bit compulsive in some respects. I do Duolingo in French, German and Scottish Gaelic (not making huge progress with the latter; I should really look up the grammar, which is not at all like that of any other language that I've studied). I somehow fall for the mustn't-lose-my-"streak" thing and can't bear to break it. No reason, really - but it's an incentive to keep going, even though the streak couldn't really matter less. Which reminds me... better do today's session. 

 

Casting off

 

We've lived in our current house for 37 years. The street we live in is very small - only 5 houses - and in all the years we've lived here, the road has never been resurfaced. Until now. 

Very exciting. 

Luckily we haven't needed to get our car out in the last few days, and tomorrow we're going up town in the bus, so that's all right. We do usually go to the supermarket on Thursdays, though. Hmm. We'll see. 

It's not really been gardening weather - cold and dank - so I've been getting on with making star patches out of Mr L's old shirts for his quilt. This is not how they'll be arranged. There are 9 because I wasn't concentrating - I only need 8, I think. Stars are a bit of a fiddle; the other patches will be less so, I hope. 

We have snowdrops and crocuses in the garden - not fully out crocuses, but they're showing colour. I'm eager to get the spring tidy done. On the other hand, it's chilly - not frosty, but not tempting. Playing with old shirts is more fun. 

I always wanted to make a quilt (a quilt - and I'm now on my 27th!) but never had time before I retired from teaching and indeed till after my mum died because she was then ill and needed looking after. My lovely mum was a chilly (not in personality, Margaret! - just in temperature) person and I now wish that I'd been able to make her a quilt to sit under in her pink chair. She'd have been impressed, too - not that my quilts are impressive, but she was my mum. She died 13 and a half years ago and I miss her a lot. 

Wonky

We drove up to Son's house near Dundee on Saturday and went to a bouncy place. Here is Medium Granddaughter swinging on a trapeze, 

and Small Grandson making his dad disappear. It was lovely to see them. 

Supermarkets at this time of year sell bunches of daffodils for £1, which seems terribly little - how much do the growers get?? On the other hand, since the daffodils are there, and cut already, it seems right just to buy some and get a burst of spring in the house. So cheering.

On Sunday we walked in the Botanics, where alpines bloomed in the open glasshouses

and snowdrops flowered outside. Lovely!

I had another bash at making a star with striped fabric - not checked, this time; maybe another day, when I feel stronger - and actually put some thought into getting the stripes going in the same direction. Not quite matching - I don't have that much time to footer about - but considerably better than my previous attempt, which I hadn't really thought about in advance, and which I'm not going to bother changing. The quilt will just be for Mr Life to sit under while watching tv, and he doesn't mind. You know that thing about the Amish putting a deliberate mistake into a quilt to show... what? ... the imperfections of humanity or something. Well, the other star from shirt material was that. Or so we'll say.

And golly gosh, isn't humanity showing its imperfections at the moment, particularly the world leaders? Compared to that, I'm not worrying about a wonky star. 

 

Home and away

Nothing much happening around here, thank goodness. Unlike in the US and other places. Shudder. Above, Littlest Granddaughter in London decided to have a birthday party for one of her guinea pigs, and to invite four friends. Here she is, making up the party bags. She has another guinea pig, so let's see what she decides about its birthday (we think they're actually from the same litter). The party went well, with everyone entering into the slightly bonkers spirit of the occasion. 

We walked along the river on a sunny day. 

Then we climbed the steps to the gallery, where we had coffee

after which we walked through the front garden of the gallery, with its Landform, and home. 

Mr L has decided that he would like a quilt made from his old shirts, which I've been collecting for some time because you never know when you might need a bit of fabric. 

This is all I've done so far - other busyness has intervened. It's wonky because soft, much-washed fabric has a mind of its own; also, checked fabric shows no mercy. However, I'll put it at the bottom and once it's quilted it'll look fine. Or fine enough. 

Last Saturday, we went for a town walk with our walking chums. For some reason, these photos are in reverse order, but we ended up at Holyrood Park, having lunch in The King's Gallery. It was our oldest friend's 95th birthday! She is absolutely amazing - full of energy. It was only about 5 miles, but I was glad to sit down at the end, whereas she was still bouncing around. You should see her going up hills! Whizz. 

Before this, we walked along a street that I never knew existed, which was interesting. 

And before that, along an old railway line complete with its quite long tunnel, which was, though it doesn't look it here, a gentle slope up. I'm not a great fan of tunnels, especially uphill ones. 

And thus the quiet life continues, while deranged men far away decide that they want power over other people's countries. How have we allowed this to happen? 

I'm sitting listening to Mozart's Alma Dei Creatoris as I type, in preparation for singing it tonight at choir. This is very soothing. 

Art and such things

It's been a bit January-ish round here, with even some snow, so we've been doing indoory things as well as going on our usual walks. There was an exhibition of early Ikea fabrics at the Dovecot Gallery, so we went there. I can't say that I would particularly like any of these in my house, but they were interesting to look at. 

I didn't really like 1960s and 70s fashion even at the time.

Hmm, don't think so. 

Then, because it was on our way back, we popped into the museum to look at some things. Such as this, which I thought was a little house, but turns out to be an 8th century casket, possibly for holding saintly relics. 

Everybody likes the Lewis chessmen, made probably in Norway in the 1200s but discovered on the Isle of Lewis in 1831. 94 pieces were found, of which 82 of them reside in the British Museum in London (ho hum) and only 11 in the National Museum of Scotland. One is in private ownership. None of them is on Lewis, which is where they probably should be. 

Of course there's the one that lives on my desk (do you see his friend in the photo above?) but it's just possible that it might not be an original...

There are some lovely carved pieces rescued ... or at least taken.. from old buildings. This dates from about 1530. 

Then today the pavements were quite slippery in the morning so we went to the National Gallery (of Scotland). This is a 1915 sketch by Francis Cadell, called "The Parting". Isn't it wonderful how Cadell conveyed the sorrow felt by the woman as she waved her chap off to war? 

I think the light on this painting of the Scottish Highlands is fantastic - sun just poking out from between the clouds, as does happen occasionally here. It's by someone called Peter Graham, of whom I must confess I hadn't heard. Or at least the name hadn't stuck.  He lived from 1836 to 1921 - quite a long time. 

And here's an 1823 sketch by David Wilkie of a Greenwich Pensioner. Again, so much character in what might seem a basic drawing with very little use of colour. 

So many clever people. I'm glad their work has survived to keep them sort-of alive. 
 

Rainbows and sun

Well, at last the rainbow quilt is finished. I can claim no credit for the design, which was made up by someone much cleverer than I. But sadly I don't know who this was. The idea just came from a random photo on the internet, which I slavishly copied using fabrics that I (mainly) had. I did have to acquire some of the low volume ones, and Thimbleanna, my quilting guru, very kindly gave me some of these. 

It's really very simple compared to some of the wonderful creations one sees on the internet, but I'm not an ambitious quilter. And I only do some fairly basic hand quilting, but I enjoy this. Machine quilting can be lovely, but fiddling around with needle and thread while watching television is more my thing. 

I had to go against my principles to include orange (don't like orange) but rainbows do contain orange, so I put some in. Grudgingly. I much prefer blues and greens. It fits a single bed, and annoyingly, when it's put on a bed, the orange is quite prominent - just at the bend of the pillow. Ho hum. 

It's for Littlest Granddaughter. If she gets fed up of the rainbow colours she can always turn it over. 

It's the last day of the school holidays here and we went with the Edinburgh Two and their dad to the Botanics for a walk and lunch. It was a beautiful day but coooooold. 

This is how high the sun gets at midday here in mid-winter. Not very high! We had a lovely time with the family, though. So lucky to have them here.