Years

The solar eclipse happened, and Littlest Granddaughter, who with Daughter 2 is staying with us for most of August, saw it through the pinhole camera that her mother made out of a cereal carton. Well, we all saw it. The sun looked tiny inside the cereal box, but it definitely had a bite out of it. Littlest Granddaughter was not particularly impressed, even when we told her that it wouldn't happen again till she's 78 or something. 

She decided to make "an old, one-eyed teddy with a patch". So we did. She designed it, which is why the teddy has unusually pointy ears, but you don't argue with Littlest Granddaughter, at least not about something unimportant. The artist's vision, and all that. 

She found, and tried on, the dress that I wore on 18th December 1967, when Mr Life was my partner at my sixth year (ie final year) school dance. I was 17, he was 19, and this is when our romance began. The dress was, obviously, too big for her but not as much too big as I would have expected. She's very tall for nearly 9. However, I washed it not long ago and I think it shrank. 

Today we went to the funeral of the husband of one of my friends from my school-teaching days. I've known her since 1973 and the group of us English teachers who made friends then are still friends and meet up fairly regularly. Brian was 80, so it wasn't a tragedy exactly, but still, it's sad. The funeral food afterwards was by the river in Haddington; quite scenic. My lovely granny was born in a house just beside this bridge, in 1895.

Carpe diem, that's the thing. 

 

Crieff again

We've been away for a long weekend with all the family, minus Son-in-Law 2, who's performing at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh. Son and family were staying in Crieff Hydro, while the rest of us were in a lodge in the grounds. We celebrated Medium Granddaughter's 10th birthday. 

I've been going to the Hydro since 1953, but I'm probably not the longest-standing guest. It's the sort of place that people keep going back to. 

Son and family did a hair-raising tree walk / zip wire thing. I could hardly look. I don't know where Son got those genes from; not me or his dad. However, they survived - indeed, seem to have enjoyed it. Argh.

And we went for walks and the kids did things in the adventure playground and most of the party went swimming a lot. It was very nice. 

On the way home yesterday, Daughter 2, Littlest Granddaughter, Mr L and I visited Drummond Castle, which has amazing formal gardens. The old bit of the castle dates from about 1490 and there's a newer mansion, in which the family actually lives when they're there, dating from 1689 but much altered over the years to suit contemporary tastes. 

There have been gardens here since the 1400s, but this layout was started in the 1830s. 

The upper photo shows most of the very formal bit, and you can see in the lower one how the box hedges make the main shapes, at the moment filled with antirrhinums of various colours, and lavender. On the sides of the garden that aren't shown are lots of topiaried trees. It's stunning. And very labour-intensive, I'd think. 

The area round our lodge was also scenic. 

And, as we always do, we climbed The Knock and admired the best view in the world. This is possibly a slightly biased opinion. 

Breaking no bones

On Friday we did another recce for a walk, this time in the Border country, starting at Kelso and walking down the River Teviot. We suspected that it might be a bit too long. Ten or fifteen years ago, the gang was doing 7-9 miles; now we tend to do 5 or 6, or 7 at a stretch. This one looked like 7. But we thought we'd investigate. 

It was a very pretty walk, though these lovely pink flowers belong to the horribly invasive Himalayan Balsam, and boy, it's invaded this river bank. 

It was a lovely day, if a trifle hot in the sun. 

And some of it was reasonably easy walking. 

But after a while, the path became very narrow and also sloped a bit from side to side, with lots of stones and roots. Hmm. Our progress was therefore quite slow. So after a couple of miles we decided that the whole walk - which is a circular one, down one side of the river and back the other side - would take too long, and we retraced our steps back to Kelso. After the last walk, where I tripped twice. we're being more cautious. Our ages range from mid-sixties up through the seventies and eighties, with one - the fittest of us all - being 95! 

Back in Kelso, we visited Kelso Abbey. It was built around 1128 and was a huge monastery. But its proximity to the border with England meant that it suffered from repeated English invasions, and in an attack in 1545 it was more or less destroyed. All that remains is this fragment of the Abbey church, which was in use till a new church was built in 1771-3. 

And then we went for coffee and cake. It was a good day, and we broke no bones. 

 

Seven miles

August is going to be busy with Festival visitors, and we're leading a walk in early September, so we did an experimental recce on Friday. We got the train to Kirkcaldy (pronounced Kir-coddy) and admired their civic flower arrangements. 

Then we walked down to the sea through Kirkcaldy and on to (a bit of) the Fife Coastal Path, 

which was scenic. We took the high tide route because... the tide was high. 

We reached Dysart Harbour, where we had lunch. 

It was quite a warm day, though intermittently cloudy, which was good. It would have been a hot walk otherwise. 

I was intrigued by this shed covered by, I assume, names from former boats. 

Then we retraced our steps.

Not sure what this little lookout tower was for, apart from the obvious. 

As we walked through Ravenscraig Park, we detoured to Ravenscraig Castle, which was built for Mary of Gueldres in about 1640. 

It used to look like this. 

But now looks like this. We scrambled about a bit - well, maybe not precisely scrambled, but went up and down some rather precarious steps and steep, slightly slippery paths to get to the back of the castle. Some people never learn. 

And then we went back down into Kirkcaldy, noticing this building as we passed. It was built in 1692 and was in distinctly better repair than the castle. It's now a medical centre. 

We think we did about seven miles, and the road up the hill through the town to get our train was a bit wearisome. Fortunately, the art gallery, with its very nice cafe, is just adjacent to the station, so we went there for a short collapse and refuel. It was a good day, though. 

 

Flowers and flying

It was Big Grandson's 15th birthday on Friday. 15!!! It seems no time since he was a baby. He's still a lovely boy, though, and certainly Big - nearly 6 feet tall. He doesn't really want stuff, so Mr L and he went off to Newcastle for a couple of days to ride on trains and buses and the metro. They had fun. 

On Saturday, we went with our walking chums to Haddington, to walk along the river to East Linton. 

It doesn't really look it here, but it was a hot day. 

This bit looks fairly idyllic, 

as does this, but actually, a lot of the time we were walking in single file along the river bank, on a very narrow path with small rocks and tree roots sticking up, so it was quite tricky. 

Which explains how I - no one else, just idiot I - managed to trip on one of these stones/tree roots, not once but twice, both times going flying. The first time I landed mainly on my right thigh, up at the top, and thought - argh, my new hip! But fortunately I don't seem to have damaged it. The second time I landed on my hands, knees and nose. Again, though nothing was exactly improved by this, nothing was broken, which was a great relief and I hope shows the relative strength of my bones. But I was pretty shaken up both times. Since we had a good two miles of path to go before we reached a road, I just got up again and, after some sticking-plastering, plodded on, though more slowly and carefully. It does make me wonder how, if I had broken a leg or ankle, the emergency services would have reached me. We were on a river bank, surrounded by trees - a helicopter wouldn't have worked. It would have had to have been a stretcher party, plodding along two or three miles of this narrow path. Lucky them!

Ah well, the garden blooms on,

though I must do something about the pretty, but rampant, Japanese anemones. As I say every year at about this time. 

This week's victims of my minimalising: two crystal butter dishes (we have four) and a crystal heart that I think I bought my mum when desperate for a present for her. It's pretty. But I don't need it. 

My agapanthus is doing well, It's enormous. One day we may be unable to get out of our kitchen door. 

And we went to the Botanics today with the Edinburgh Two plus their dad, and admired the wild flower meadow patches. 

All very flowery. But we need rain. 

 

Whizz

And so life gallops on. Minimalising Monday last week featured some scarves. Once upon a time, I wore smart(ish) coats with scarves supplying a touch of brightness at the neck. Now, not really. So they went. 

The garden blooms away. I do love it. 

I've done a bit to Mr Life's shirt quilt - here are some piano key borders. I do like making them. 

Ah, these Shasta daisies are very pretty, though give them an inch and they take an acre. Not that we have an acre.

I love this shrubby clematis. It blooms for months. 

Yesterday we drove up north to visit Son and family. Here he is (the children were also there) on a bike... don't know what you'd call it. A skate park, but for bikes. 

We went back to their house, where the grandchildren brought out their quilts to lie on and for various other activities. Medium Granddaughter is rolled up in hers. Small Grandson is using his for the roof of a den made out of sofa cushions. My mum's sofa cushions, in fact. I wish she could have met the children. 

Bouncing on the trampoline. 

And this week's offering to the gods of minimalisation. Very nice cups and saucers - which haven't been used for years. They've gone to the charity shop and the cupboard is less full. (Still quite full, mind you.)