Partial lockdown week 10 - Sunday

Today my good friend Joyce came to coffee, two metres away, in the garden. That was so nice. She's the one for whom I'm making the quilts out of her late husband's shirts. I've finished the one for her but am still quilting the one for her son, so she opted to get them both together in a few weeks. I hope she likes them! Again we cooried into the shade because it was hot. 

The lupins and irises are looking good. The irises immediately behind the lupins are actually a beautiful blue - see below - but the sunlight on them makes them look white in the photo. The ones behind them, under the tree, actually are white. (I've noticed that Americans tend to spell lupin as lupine. I wonder if they pronounce them "lu-pie-n" - pie as in apple pie. We pronounce them "lu-pin" - pin as in needle.) I'm so amazed that the lupins haven't got aphids - this is the first time for about ten years that they haven't. I do love them. Maybe I'll dig up some of the astilbe, which isn't good this year because it's been SO dry (look at the grass!) and grow some more lupins in their place. Lupins are easy to grow from seed, though I would like a crimson one and maybe a pink - or a yellow? - so to be sure of that, I'll probably have to buy plants. That's in the far-off future when going to a garden centre seems like a feasible idea.

We had a Zoom call with all the family and my brother's too this afternoon. This was lovely, though it does reinforce how much I'm missing them all. 

We went for a shortish evening walk. If we lived a little bit up the hill, we'd get this view from our house. Sadly, we don't.

We went along the old railway path, looking down at Carrick Knowe golf course, where as far as we could see there were no golfers. But it's never very well used, which has always had me thinking that it was wasted as a golf course and would be better as a park. But then, someone would need to maintain it.

It was still warm but the path was pleasantly shady

and full of wild flowers, like this rose. 2 ish miles.

Things I would like to do - apart from seeing the family:

Go to Arran (with the family).
Go up town and have a cappuccino.
Browse round a book shop.
Wander round the Botanics.
Have lunch at Swanston and walk around there.
Go on a train trip to Berwick and walk around.
Visit Crieff.

And then - but these aren't going to happen:

Have a chat with my mother.
Have a chat with my grandmother - now that I'm only 14 years younger than she was when she died. It would be nice to talk as old ladies!
Go to visit my Norfolk aunt and stay in the lovely house she lived in... that has now been sold. We had so many wonderful holidays there with her.

Ah well. Tomorrow is another day, which we're lucky to have.

I said I'd blog every day till lockdown was over. It's only very slightly over; but I'm getting slightly (more than slightly) repetitious. So - possibly I should ease off a bit.