Idle days

With the family away, we've been for walks and watched an unusual amount of television. It's been perfectly pleasant, if somewhat odd. On Christmas Eve, we walked to the art gallery and then back along the river.

It was windless, mild and overcast; good weather for walking.

On Christmas Day, we opened our presents - look, lots of nice books, fabric, chocolate and hyacinths. What more could anyone want?

Then we walked along the sea front at Cramond.

It was an absolutely lovely day: again, mild, not a breath of wind and now with that beautiful, slanting winter sunshine.

The only thing wrong with the foreshore at Cramond is that it's ideal big-dog-walking territory. I quite like dogs but there are so many of them here and they gallop. Lots of people have two or three massive hounds each. Our Edinburgh grandchildren are a bit scared of dogs so we hardly ever bring them here, which is a shame.

This is Cramond Island, which you can walk out to when the tide is low. You need to consult the tide tables, though, since the walkway is covered when the tide comes in. We just looked at it.

And then we walked back, went home and started watching "The Crown", which I've avoided up till now. I disapprove of making films about living people, especially people like the royals, who can't protest. (Or maybe they could if they really wanted to; I don't know. Maybe it's worse to make films about ordinary living people to whom something extraordinary and bad has happened.) It's not that I'm particularly a royalist, but they're just people and I don't think it's fair. I wonder if they watch it. If so, it must be terribly annoying to see themselves misportrayed, as they must be at least to some extent.

However, my curiosity got the better of my judgement,. It's well done but with a strong element of piffle, I thought. Still, their lives have certainly been eventful - for people who don't really do anything. Possibly it's because they have so much leisure that they have time to get themselves into pickles.

Our lives wouldn't make much of a television series. Thankfully.

And all of our children phoned us up via Skype or whatever, so we weren't forgotten.