Faces, hair and time

Life is so busy! I'll never have enough time to do all the things I want to do. But it's fun. The Edinburgh grandchildren have been here, not adding to the tidiness of our house but adding so much to the happiness.

It's been very wet! I tried to go for a walk in the Botanics the other day, but they were closed! - I assume because of flooding on the paths. Instead, I walked in Inverleith Park, which is opposite the Botanics, and got rather muddy.

This path (yes, it's a path) was impassible so I had to walk on the grass. Hmm, yes.

More from the archives. My parents took our family and my brother's to France to celebrate my parents' Golden Wedding in 1996 and the children made a joint book about it to thank them. They all wrote some entries. Food figures widely in these. The one below is written by my niece. She's rather disrespectful about her mother, my delightful sister-in-law!

And then - photos. This is my father's paternal grandfather. He died at the age of 40. He was a house painter but also painted pictures - which we sent to auction when my mother's house had to be cleared, on the grounds that you can't keep everything. I feel bad about that but on the other hand, we've saved the dilemma passing itself down to our children in future years.

This is his wife, my dad's paternal grandmother. Good hair.

This is my dad's maternal grandfather, the reason that I'm astonished that Son still has a thick head of hair.

And here's his wife, my dad's maternal grandmother.

My dad's parents, children of the above.

The chap with the moustache looks like the same chap, my paternal grandfather, but is actually his brother Angus. Here he is with his mother, grandmother and baby son (my dad's cousin) in 1910. Sadly Angus was killed in the war five years later. But these ladies are our grandchildren's great-great-great grandmother and great-great-great-GREAT grandmother. Which astonishes me. Imagine being able to see such a good picture of one's GGGGgrandmother! - and she's smiling at having her first great-grandchild on her knee. She was born in 1829, in the reign of William IV, Victoria's uncle.

And here's my paternal grandmother (as seen two photos above with her husband). She's on the right. She was the third youngest of ten children. Sadly, the little boy, Henry, was also killed in the war in 1915. Poor mite.

I needed a photo of myself for other purposes and tried taking a selfie. The result was too horrendous to contemplate. So, to cheer myself up, I took a non-selfie in the bathroom mirror, with kind, gentle light from the side, thus making myself look better than usual instead of worse. I'm not particularly vain, but there's a limit. Ah, it's a terrible thing, getting older. I used to have curly, shiny brown hair - it was never hugely thick but it was acceptable. Now it's greying and straightish and there's far less of it. Ah well. (It might have looked better if I'd at least combed it.)

This is my mum's wartime diary from 1940. She was living in London and working for the Civil Service. Now, she had lovely thick hair. My dad was visiting her when he was on leave from the army but so were various other young men. She had at least three marriage proposals. One chap, Geoffrey, said he'd become a monk if she didn't marry him. She didn't but he didn't.

It's all terribly interesting (to me; probably not to anyone else apart from the daughters) but also very time-consuming. And that's not to mention the 132 (out of the projected 144) tumbler shapes I've so far cut out of my friend's deceased husband's shirts, at her request, to make a quilt of them. Busy busy busy.