Lockdown week 4 - Wednesday

Today we decided to go west along the top of Corstorphine Hill - first admiring this cherry tree (I think it is) on the way up. We passed the golf course gate that was closed  with plastic ties yesterday and, as I predicted, there was no sign of the ties. Someone we knew was coming out of it and we exchanged a few words about the situation. Then, just as I was about to take a photo of the untied gate, a golf course chap in a little truck drove up, got out and approached the gate with rope. I enquired mildly of why the gates were being tied shut and he said he was just doing what he was told to do; that children had been on the course and - shrug. He said that we could go on the course, but not through the gates. Hmm.

I thought - but didn't say - that any small children we'd seen (and there have been very few) were with their respectable parents. Possibly larger youths have been seen there, maybe in the evenings? And sure enough, vandalism could have taken place. But frankly, the not-very-high walls, though somewhat tricky for a short and stiffish nearly-70-year-old to negotiate, would be no barrier at all for a sixteen-year-old lad.

However, our plan today didn't involve the golf course, so we proceeded up the hill, noticing that all the gates had things like this on them. Well, nearly all.

This one was a more Heath Robinson effort. The gate isn't actually attached to the gatepost except (now) by this rope. As Mr L remarked, it didn't look as if the chap who did this had been a Scout. Look at the wall, though. If you were a lout, bent on mischief, would that wall stop you?

Anyway, ignoring all this with dignity, we ascended the hill and walked along one of the paths. (That's the Zoo fence on the left there. We felt no temptation to scale this.)

We looked down on north Edinburgh, the sea beyond and the hills of Fife on the other side.

and then through the wood

and after a while, out again and down the hill to the main road.

Forty miles to Glasgow. I think this stone's been here for quite a number of years.

This is the front of the Zoo, clearly once known as the Scottish Zoological Park - but no one ever calls it that. Like everything else, it's closed.

And we walked on, past the old Corstorphine Hospital. This is a beautiful building, once a convalescence home and latterly a - well, really a hospital for the very old and confused. Sadly, this is where my father died. He was confused only because he was dying of cancer, and he was transferred here three days before he died. We'd asked if he could go to a hospice but were told by the consultant that he wasn't ill enough. So he died in a huge ward, with demented old chaps walking around wailing. I was tempted to write to the consultant afterwards. But I didn't.

Now, it's being developed as flats, like so many buildings in our part of Edinburgh. \Or it was, before all this happened. I'm glad, really, because it deserves a happier future.

This is such a strange time. I almost feel that we're on holiday: sunny weather, no commitments, all day to do what we want - so long as that's going for walks and otherwise staying at home, both perfectly pleasant activities. I'm getting on well with the quilts for my friend and her son. And yet, I'm so missing the family and so aware that they're very busy with small children and home working, coping with far too much to do - instead of, like us, with nothing pressing to do at all. I've never felt less useful in my life.

Three and a half miles today.