SO busy

 It's been a while since I last posted, though I don't suppose anyone has really noticed except our London daughter, who reads this for scraps of home, I think. 

It's been BUSY. You wouldn't think that the retired life would be full of things to do, but somehow it is. It's entirely, or at least almost entirely my own fault, since I could in theory sit at home all day and read books. And sometimes that sounds quite tempting... But, though I'm very much not out there saving the world, I don't seem to have a lot of time for thumb-twiddling. Being chair of one of my choirs generates quite a lot of work, though frankly it would be easier just to do it all myself than to negotiate decisions with 6 other people... 

On days that I'm not doing other things, I'm getting on with various tasks such as - oh, here we go - Blogger's put the photos in reverse order again. Well, the list at the bottom shows some of the jobs that I had to do before going down to Daughter 2's house to try to help a bit while her actor husband is away for some months, working. 

And then, in reverse time order: 

we had a lovely walk in the Botanics with the Edinburgh Two and their dad on Monday. Look at how tall Big Grandson and Big Granddaughter are getting! Big Grandson towers over me and his sister looks down a good couple of inches on me too. 

Then on Saturday, we went for a walk with the walking gang around West Linton.

We had perfect autumn weather, with not a leaf moving. 

If one ignores the symbolism of the dying of the year being like one's own (and others') death, autumn can be lovely. 

Especially when spent with good friends. 6ish miles that day.

This is Littlest Granddaughter opening her birthday presents. She's 8! How time flies, etc.

This list was just to rationalise the fact that I'd spent a whole day pottering around. I did more after I'd given up writing the list. The foost bin, by the way, is the little kitchen bin that we put stuff in for the compost heap. Foost is a Scottish word for mould, but I don't actually leave it long enough before emptying for it to get mouldy. Daughter 2 invented the phrase for the similar bin in her kitchen and it seemed apt. 

Better go and do some Duolingo before bed. That's another thing. Why am I polishing up my French and German and trying to learn Gaelic? Am I going to use any of these? Most unlikely, to any extent. Is it saving me from dementia? Well, let's hope. 

Edited to add: the first sentence in the German lesson I've just started was -

Ich habe die Maultaschen mit Pilzen noch nicht 

.

which means, I haven't yet tried the dumplings with mushrooms. I can't imagine using this. Though I do quite like mushrooms.