Wednesday, October 21, 2020

Ho hum

I am beginning to feel seriously fed up with this virus thing - even though I do know that a lot of people have much worse things to put up with. On Monday I took the Edinburgh grandchildren to the trampoline centre, and with the various necessary restrictions it was all a bit of a faff. The children had a good time, though. 

Then yesterday, Mr L and I had a long walk along the River Almond. It had been very wet overnight, the river was very fast-flowing and it was quite muddy underfoot. But it was good to go somewhere different from the usual walks - it's only a couple of miles from our house as the crow flies but we haven't been for a while because the council have put in traffic restrictions - among many supposedly to encourage us to get on our bikes - which make it more difficult to get parked near there. 

I wanted to see the autumn colours, which have been very good near us, but in fact by the river they were slightly disappointing. Still, we had a lovely walk. 



Here we are crossing Cramond Brig (Bridge), which was built around 1480. It's a long way down to the river at this point. I can't imagine how they built it, but it seems to have worked. 


The sun came out, 

it was mild, and we felt refreshed. 

And today we walked down to Saughton Park, which is past its summer best

but still has a reasonable amount of colour, as in these Michaelmas daisies

and this sedum


these schizostylis (I think),

very late-flowering lupins

and delphiniums. 

It was such a beautiful day, as warm as summer (here). 

Which would have made it a good day for our landscapers to come, but once more, they didn't - or, to be more accurate, they did, arousing our hopes, but they stayed about twenty minutes and then vanished without a word. They were supposed to be laying our turf today. Turf? What turf? I realise that, having been mucked around by our unhelpful new neighbour getting the road dug up (and then filled in again) when they were supposed to be doing the work at the beginning of the month, they're now fitting us in during odd moments, but we're getting very fed up with wondering every day if they're coming. First world problems, I know, but these don't add to the joy of life. 

I handed over the African fabrics quilt to my friend last night, at her door, and she seemed delighted. Which is good. 

I'm becoming more and more aware that we don't have very many more good years ahead of us, when we're healthy and reasonably fit to visit people and places - and here's one of those years, being frittered away. And three of our grandchildren are growing up without us. Ho hum. 

 

5 comments:

  1. You, Pam, will have nothing but good years, because of your great love and talent and wisdom and strength. Thus far has the Lord helped us; that's all I've got now. We don't know anymore how far we can drive for walks, as non-essential travel is disallowed. But all the non-essential shops are still open. 'Tis a conundrum.

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  2. I go up and down, thinking that I can deal with this for another 6-12 months, but then I think of my daughters and grandson SO far away, and my spirits crash. There are still so many beautiful flowers! Our fall color isn't spectacular this year due to warmer than usual weather. That's changing this week, so perhaps we'll get a few pretty trees.

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  3. Oh Pam, you do sound down - and I don't blame you. What a relentless grind this thing is. The time will come when you can reestablish your connection with those dear Grandchildren, meanwhile there's FaceTime, or Zoom, or whatever you can manage. I heard recently of a grandparent who was reading books over Zoom, and had established a routine of reading while Mum got on with doing the evening meal. TV only went on AFTER stories with Grandma. !
    Do you have a favourite book, or poet, you can turn to for some comfort?
    I hope tomorrow is better.

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  4. I do sympathise about the disappearing workmen. My heart sinks when they say they’ve just got to shoot off somewhere, or pop out and fetch some seemingly obvious item that they should have had with them and they’ll be back later. They never are.
    And I’m all for carpe diem but I’d like to be carpe ing it with all the family indoors...because tempus fugit and all that.

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  5. It looks like you're having a wonderful fall Pam, in spite of the virus. I feel your pain though. I've really been thinking about the limited amount of years left. And all the things I still want to do. Travel among them. I fear even when things open back up, we'll be scarred and things will be so different. {Sigh.}

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