Saturday, May 30, 2020

Lockdown loosening walk - Saturday


Mr Life, who pays attention to what he reads in the paper, knew (unlike me) that the Carrick Knowe golf course doesn't reopen till Thursday, so we set off in the heat of the afternoon to walk there. It was very quiet, with few walkers, so presumably other people didn't know either.


Lots of empty space.


It's buttercup time - so pretty.


However, we can across a couple of groups of golfers who had similarly not read the news ...


so at that stage we left the golf course and walked along the track by the railway and tramway. Several depressingly empty trains and trams passed.


The ox-eye daisies are coming out nicely.

2.8 miles.

Then when we got home, Daughter 2 video-called with Littlest Granddaughter. Littlest has taken against wearing clothes. Daughter 2 dresses her and Littlest immediately undresses herself. Because of the warm weather this doesn't matter in the house, but Daughter 2 draws the line at going out in public with a naked toddler. Anyway, we had a nice naked (her, not us) chat.

While it was absolutely lovely to see two of the grandchildren yesterday, it did bring home how much I miss them and the others. And I don't suppose there's any chance at all of seeing any of the others any time soon.

It's been strange, this lockdown time. For parents of children, it's been difficult in various degrees. For a lot of people, it's been very difficult indeed in different ways. But for us - it's been like a strange sort of holiday: no commitments, no entertaining, so no cooking to speak of - I do cook for Mr L but my standard vegetarian meal for myself is a one-egg omelette - and no driving or child-minding. Lots of walks, reading and in my case, quilt-making. Just pleasing ourselves on the whole - but missing the family so much.

Before the Edinburgh family came yesterday I opened up the sandpit and filled the paddling pool. At one point, Big Grandson said to me, "It was nice to arrive and find that you'd prepared for us." In fact I'd prepared much less than I usually do, since there was no cooking involved - they brought their own picnic lunch, according to Government instructions. Presumably Grandson just thinks that meals arrive on the table by magic at Granny's! So sweet.

"Peely wally", an Scottish expression I used in yesterday's blog, means "pale", by the way, Margaret, with a suggestion often of unusually pale, ill-looking, eg "He's looking a wee bit peely wally - I'm gonie phone the doctor." Here I just meant pale and unsuited to the sun, as opposed to tanned.


3 comments:

  1. John's granddaughter, who will be 2 at the end of August, has also taken against clothing and loves to undress herself. I wonder if it's a stage that many children go through. I don't remember my two doing so, but if one of them did, it would have been Alison! :) Glad you got a partial walk on the golf course, and thanks for the vocabulary enrichment! I had the wrong end of the stick.

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  2. It's the same here. For us 'elderly', high risk folks it seems a bit like a holiday, but what a mess for the rest of the human family! Happy for you that you were able to spend time with the grandchildren and walk on the golf course one more time.

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  3. YAY! The Edinburgh grandbabies have been back for a visit! Now maybe things can get back to more like they were before. It was fun to see grandson's train on the grass -- our lawns are cut too long for the train tracks to stay together. Everyone looked like they were having such a grand time outside. Reading about your daily walks has been so fun -- I hope you'll have time to continue to take them and blog about them! XO

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