Lockdown week 6 - Monday

We just had a walk around the streets today because we needed to - well, wanted to - buy bananas and therefore had to go past a shop. The cherry blossom is still lovely.

There are the Pentland Hills, always available for lifting up one's eyes to.

The river, from the Coltbridge.

Bananas acquired, we walked through Roseburn Park, with its empty children's playpark and the unlovely Murrayfield Stadium.

This was quite sweet. We didn't, though.

This says, "The message must get through". Ironically, it's quite hard to read. I had no idea of its significance until just now, when I asked Mr Google, and ...

A film was made about the Armoury- that's the building next to the pavilion and the toilet block- during the war. It was used as a Report Centre for emergencies. It features heavily (along with the river nearby) in "THE MESSAGE MUST GET THROUGH" . This was a drama / documentary about the Civil Defence services during wartime Edinburgh, and the film contains shots of the messenger Corps in action alerting all services during ARP - including the system used for alerting all services in the event of an air raid, "Action Stations" during and after a raid, then inside the Report Centre and Civil Defence Operations Room, National Fire Service in action, rescue services and finally some first aid.
You can see the half-hour film here: http://ssa.nls.uk/film.cfm?fid=1396&search_term=Roseburn

If you look at it two minutes in, you'll enjoy the sight of a mob of WW2 Wardens trying to cross the Water of Leith at Riversdale on their bikes, to get their vital message to the Armoury.

And you can see the Wardens actually getting there, 17 minutes later in the film, as the reports arrive at the Armoury.
See within, the ladies behind hatches taking secret messages - in what I can only imagine is the wall near the Cricket Club's tea urn.

You can see the exteriors then and again later at 24 mins as the messages go out again. It's fascinating seeing how little it's changed since 1942.

Well, well. Must have a look at the film later. Meanwhile, we walked along the river,

below more cherry froth and home. 2.75 miles. I then did some more destructive gardening, added to Small Grandson's quilt top and progressed with the hand-quilting of one of the others. 

And soon it'll be May. I hope things will have improved a bit by the time we get to June. It's occurred to me that the very worst thing would be to get the virus and die having not seen the children and grandchildren for months. Not that I'm planning to do so. But wouldn't it be awful?

Only four minutes left till midnight so if I'm to keep to my (totally meaningless) decision to post every day during the crisis, I'd better do so now.