Lockdown week 9 - Friday

As we'll be able to do for only another week, we went up to Murrayfield and Ravelston golf courses. Compared to when we first went, when there was hardly anyone walking on them, there are now quite a few people and their dogs - not that social distancing is any problem, as you can see from the photo above.

I shall feel very bereft when we can no longer go there. However, I have hopes of being able to see the Edinburgh family, which will make up for it.

Outside the Ravelston clubhouse there are now these ominous white lines, which are presumably to make people queue to start playing, with a safe distance between them. I mean ominous in the sense that they're raring to start golf again, not in the sense of imminent disease. But I've just heard on the radio that 36,393 people have now died of Covid 19 in Britain, which is a lot. Only 2,245 of them were in Scotland, though I realise that "only" is possibly not the word to use.

Walking on the course is really good exercise because it's hilly - ups and downs and ups again. It must be quite difficult to aim for the holes, I'd think - not that I know anything about golf, though my maternal grandfather was a keen golfer and I've read lots of P G Wodehouse, in some of which golf features.

And then after a lot of those ups and downs, we came back on to the Murrayfield course and down to the road. It was very blustery, with occasional spots of rain, and we could see that over the water in Fife and in the distance to the east here, it looked as if it was raining more seriously.

Nearly 3 miles.

And then we came home and found these letters from the Edinburgh grandchildren.

Very heart-warming. They've been walking on a different golf course, one near their home - in fact, the one that my grandfather played on. (Jump In is a trampoline centre where I've taken them a few times. I'd love to take them there soon!)

And then Mr L did some more stop-motion Brio layout filming for Big Grandson, I pruned my rhododendrons and wrote some emails and then I finished hand-sewing the binding on the first of the shirt quilts for my widowed friend. Tomorrow I'll start quilting the one for her son.

And so the days wear on, perfectly pleasantly in their way, but now there's hope buoying us up that we may see at least the Edinburgh two and their parents in a week or so. I trust their parents are interpreting the rules in the same way as we are!

Big Grandson has just sent a WhatsApp voice message asking for another letter from me, so I shall get on and write one.