Away. And back.

I've just come back from visiting Daughter 2 in London. One day, I met up with my best friend from school, who also went to London and never came back. (Cf my brother. What is it with London?) Anyway, look how much coffee costs in St Pancras Station! 

Later that day there was an impromptu mini-party in the garden with two of the members of Son-in-Law 2's improv troupe, the Showstoppers. This was very exciting for me: one of them is Ruth, who is amazing. (They're all pretty amazing.) If you have five minutes, Google "Showstoppers - And then he left" and you'll see why I think so. This song was genuinely improvised in front of an audience as part of one of their many, many improvised musicals. (The male actor isn't SIL 2.)

Littlest Granddaughter is getting big. 

Yesterday we went to a garden centre to choose plants for their currently somewhat featureless back garden. This was fun!

It's been horribly hot in London and the nasty clay of their garden is as hard as concrete. It'll be quite difficult to dig holes in it, to plant these. However, despite appearances, the soil must be quite fertile, since Daughter 2 has planted lots of things in the front garden which are thriving. 

And today I came home to find that my sweet peas are blooming. How things change in the garden in five days. 

My train journey was not the best. First I was in a crowded carriage and the girl sharing my double seat was HUGE. I mean, I’m by no means thin but she was massive, so that she (who was by the window) overlapped at least a third of my seat. Thus a third of me was sticking out into the corridor and my rear end was very conscious of the uncomfortable edge of my seat. She was also very hot, radiating her heat, and I kept inching away from her, upon which she immediately spread into the gap that I’d created. This probably sounds very unsympathetic and I was very sorry for her, but would have been even sorrier if she hadn’t been eating the most enormous sandwich I’ve ever seen. Maybe it was a special train treat. After a bit I went to investigate the unbooked carriage and found empty seats, so I moved. I expect she was pleased to get more space too.

But then I found myself opposite the chattiest woman in the world, who talked all the way to Edinburgh (from maybe twenty miles out of London). She has recently left her cheating husband in the Canary Islands (where they lived) and come home to Kent. Today she was going to Edinburgh to stay for ten days with a friend she knows from the Canary Islands. She was looking forward to it, and excited, but also a bit dubious because he’s a naturist (ie nudist) and is going to take her to a naturist B and B in south-west Scotland. "Well, I'm 63 now and I suppose I should be trying new things before it's too late," she said, without total conviction. The rest of her life story involved another husband, two sons, three grandsons, a father with dementia and her previous job - while living in Kent and before going abroad -  on Network Rail. She was very nice but I didn't have the peaceful time with my book and flask of coffee that I had in mind. I hope her naturist chap is nice and not too... naturist. 

So it's nice to be home in warm, but not desperately hot, Edinburgh. And it's peaceful. But as usual, visiting Daughter 2 just reminds me how nice she is and how much I miss her.