Complications

There have been strong winds recently, and some cold weather which caused the road bridge between us and Son's house to ice up, so that lumps of ice fell on (I think) eight cars, smashing their windscreens.  This is the new bridge - the further away one you can see in the photo above, taken from the train. The new bridge is only a couple of years old, built at a cost of £1.3 billion, and as you can imagine, there is some consternation that this should have happened. Ice, in Scotland in winter - fancy. And they don't seem to know how to guard against its happening again. Anyway, the bridge was closed for a couple of days, which prevented Son and family from coming down to visit while Daughter 2 was here.

It's not icy any more but as an experiment, Mr L and I decided that on our next visit to them we would go by train, over the rail bridge, which doesn't accumulate lumps of ice. Son and family live out in the country, so we joined a car club so that we could pick up a car from near the station and drive the few miles from there to Son's house. We also thought that, as Mr L isn't getting any younger, it would be better in the long run not to have to drive all the way to Son's, on busy and tedious roads.

This didn't work quite as smoothly as we'd hoped, since the car we'd hired wasn't actually in the indicated location, and then when we tracked it down the instructions for driving it (it was an electric vehicle) were somewhat inadequate. However, we got it all sorted out - well, Mr L did; I just sat there making soothing noises - and think we might do it again in the future.

We met them at the park and, as you can't see, the Little Unbloggables had a nice time on the swings and things.

Small Grandson is at the stage of walking while having his hands held. He's a beautiful little chap with big eyes and lots of hair.

Here they all are.

And here's a picture of all of us. Middle Granddaughter is a lovely little thing who greets us with enthusiasm, which is so nice. Small Grandson is considerably more suspicious, but at least we have some confidence that once he can remember who we are, he'll be friendly too. I do wish we saw more of them but there we are. You can't have everything. 

A couple in one of the choirs I sing in has this dolls' house, which they show for charity from time to time, so we went to see it the other day. My photos don't do it justice, but it's amazing. The wife made all the soft furnishings, which means that she embroidered the carpets, the bell pull here, the chair coverings, the place mats and napkins, the fire screen - they're all minute. The husband did all the wallpapering and installed all the joinery.

Look at the bedspread - again, hand embroidered. And the sampler - hand stitched. It's all tiny! There are three working clocks and the silverware on the dining room table is actual silver, which of course requires polishing.

And the stair carpet - hand stitched. All astonishing. Sadly, they have three sons, all uninterested, and three uninterested daughters-in-law, and their grandchildren are all too young to understand the work involved in it, so they're not sure what to plan for its future. It's museum quality, so they're thinking of donating it ultimately to somewhere that would display it permanently.

And these are some of the recent complications of life.