Lockdown week 9 - Tuesday

Nothing newsworthy happens these days, so I find myself recording the fact that my husband has revarnished the garden bench. It looks very smart, though, and I look forward to sitting on it with a cup of tea. Not that I ever sit in the garden for any length of time. Sitting about isn't really one of my strengths.

I always take lots of cuttings, mainly of fuchsias, begonias and pelargoniums, and they have to be hardened off gradually by putting them outside during the day and bringing them in at night during May, or at least till near the end of May, when the risk of cold nights is over. You can see them above. Having said that, I've just realised that I've forgotten to bring them in (and it's half past ten at night) and rushed to do so, but the night is so balmy that I've decided just to risk it. The air smells so sweet, with all the scents intensified by the dampness of evening. The garden isn't going to be so colourful this year unless I can buy some bedding plants, but at least I'll have enough home-grown ones to fill some pots and a few gaps in the flower beds. I'll have to use mainly old compost, though.

We walked along a former railway line, now a path, and admired the flowers. Here are two hawthorn trees beside each other. I love hawthorn blossom.

Hard to say which is prettier, the pink

or the white.

There were white briar roses clambering through the undergrowth

and drifts and drifts of cow parsley everywhere.

We walked up through the streets, looking back at Corstorphine Hill,

and along the edge of Carrick Knowe golf course, admiring the profusion of buttercups.

Can you see Edinburgh Castle, that little shape on the horizon just to the right of the centre above?

Various trams and trains passed along the tracks, virtually empty. Gosh, it's depressing to see them.

Meanwhile, things are growing in the allotments and our lovely grandchildren are shooting up too, without us.

I feel slightly panicky tonight - it's May 19th and I feel that life is whizzing by, with no progress. Our lockdown hasn't been eased at all, though England's has a bit. The only concession made to Scots is that we're allowed to go out for a walk more than once a day. But we don't particularly want to. Once is fine. It may be that our First Minister is right, but on the other hand, who knows? We can't go on in this unreal state forever. We have to develop the famous herd immunity; but what cost is acceptable? There's more traffic on the roads, so people are going places, though where?

Three miles today. Three miles, a bit of admin, a bit of gardening, a bit of binding-cutting-out... it's not much of a day's achievement.

Fancy Americans not calling dandelion seed heads "clocks". What do you call them, then? Children here blow them and the number of puffs you have to make to blow off all the seeds tells you the time - 5 puffs and it's 5 o'clock. It doesn't work, of course... We did it as children; I wonder how old a tradition it is.