Lockdown week 13 - Sunday - Lauriston

Father's Day, but no visits from family because, apart from anything else, rain was forecast and they're not allowed to come into the house. In fact, the morning was sunny, but in the afternoon, when we set off for our walk, it was slightly wet. We walked round the grounds of Lauriston Castle,

It's a sixteenth century tower house, but with extensive nineteenth century additions. It ended up being owned by people with no children. In 1926 they left it to Scotland on condition that the inside was unchanged, so it still has their furniture, ornaments and pictures. You can see round it, though not at the moment.

And the garden, though slightly unkempt at the moment like all our public gardens, is pretty.

At the bottom of the garden is the sea,

or rather the tidal estuary, with Fife on the other side. Over that way are our son and his family.

Here you can see the old tower on the right, surrounded by the relatively new (1820s) extension.

This is the Japanese Garden - the Edinburgh-Kyoto Garden, opened in 2002.

Then we came home and the sun shone again.

And then I did some more sorting of old stuff, such as this photo of Son. Isn't he cute?

And the daughters, on holiday in Ibiza.

This made me feel wistful. Ah well. Feeling wistful will not, as my mother used to say, buy the baby a new bonnet. On, on.

Yellow skirt

I often wonder what the grandchildren will remember of their childhoods. Particularly, in my solipsistic way, I wonder what they'll remember of their time with us. Grandson and Biggest Granddaughter spend a lot of time in our house so I would hope they'd remember quite a bit - they're now 6 and nearly 8. But one of my grandmothers left Edinburgh when I was 5 (I think) and I remember nothing at all of her living here except being at the foot of her stairs, which were quite interesting. (Our house didn't have stairs.) Do I really remember this or am I imagining it?

Memory is so odd. We all remember lots of things that we wouldn't think worth putting in a memoir - I remember getting a new school uniform cardigan and quite looking forward to going to school, wearing it. Why do I remember that? It doesn't seem very interesting. I also remember sitting on the top of a bus at Jock's Lodge and looking across at the people on the top of a bus waiting at the traffic lights beside us and thinking: I must remember this when I'm older. I wish I'd made more effort to fix in my mind more significant moments.

The other day, Biggest Granddaughter and I were discussing scissors with zig-zaggy edges. I told her that they were called pinking shears, and also that the flowers called pinks were called that because of their zig-zaggy petals, not because they were pink. (Always the teacher...) And then suddenly, from the very depths of my memory, I thought about a play - a musical play, I think - that my elder brother was in at school when he was a small boy. I remember going to it. I think it was just in a classroom rather than a big hall - but I might be wrong. Perhaps we were just in the classroom to get him dressed for the show. Anyway, it was a boys' school so my brother - who must have been about 7 or 8 - was in the chorus as a girl. He wore a yellow skirt - and here's the relevant bit - with a pinked, rather than sewn, hem. He also had a yellow mob cap, also with a pinked edge, and I think there was an actual pink-coloured bow on it. Was there also a pink bow on the skirt? I think some of the other boys had pink skirts with yellow decoration. Seems like cruelty to small boys but I don't remember my brother complaining.

I believe my mother had to make this costume, with material supplied by the school. I don't know whether the pinking was just her short-cut or part of the brief. Anyway, I think it may have ended up in my dressing-up box, where I wore it for a few years.

I hadn't thought of this for ... half a century? What else is lurking there in the recesses of my mind, ready to pop up? And in yours?

The dying of the light

It's still summer here, or so we're persuading ourselves, and Mr L and I had a lovely walk in the Botanics the other day. We haven't been there for a while, what with being away and then having Littlest Granddaughter to stay. It's only ten minutes' drive away but she's not a great fan of car journeys, not being used to them.

Soon the view of the city skyline will be much less impeded by leaves.

But there's still plenty of colour in the gardens.

Mr L has been painting the garage doors. Biggest Granddaughter and Grandson were an interested audience - watching, as it were, paint dry.

They love their Lego at the moment.

At last, six years after my mother's death, I've forced myself to go through her archives. It's so hard to know what to keep - lots of albums with my parents' holiday snaps? hmm - but I probably won't keep this photo, inscribed by - whom? - Asqualina Taifa??? - to my father. Dad was in Egypt for much of the war, defusing bombs, so I imagine that this man was an Egyptian.

I know this young chap's name. He was a friend of my father's, and also one of the suitors for my mother's hand. He sent her quite a few studio photos of himself. He remained a friend of both my parents for some years, and did marry, though his wife was agaraphobic and wasn't able to visit much and I think they lost touch eventually.

And this chap - I only remember his first name - swore that if my mother wouldn't marry him, he'd enter a monastery.

She didn't. And he didn't. But I don't know what happened to him apart from that. Mum didn't keep in touch with him. But she didn't throw away his photo.

My dad kept annual albums in which he put lots of carefully jigsawed photos of the main family events of the year. He never got round to doing 2006 because he was in hospital by the end of that year, and he died in April 2007. There a lot of poignantly blank pages in this album.

Ah well. As my mum used to say, you can't live for ever. Which is one reason that I have to deal with these archives. And then there are mine... .

In brief... ish

I seem to have been very busy, a concept which - relating to the retired life - I wouldn't have understood when I was working and was HORRENDOUSLY busy much of the time. I was thinking about this as I returned from buying a newspaper early this morning, feeling a bit stressed about the number of things I had to do. And then I thought: it's a lovely day and there's really nothing to stop you sitting in the garden, reading a book, for an hour or so. Why are you feeling tense?

However, I didn't do this, because I had various urgent tasks. But still - it's a lot more restful than working was. Anyway, much of the time we're busy doing such things as leading the walking group along the coast, as above and below - hardly a chore.

It was a beautiful day, though with a cool breeze from the sea, which is a dangerous combination for a pale-faced Celt.

 I got a bit burnt. But it was such a lovely day out.

And there's been lots of this.

And a visit to friends in the west, who took us to the Kelvingrove, where there was a great exhibition of Charles Rennie Mackintosh-related items...

including this cup and saucer painted by Helen Walton, which I really wanted to take home. (It was actually there, though this is a photo from the catalogue.) I love yellow, green and blue.

And then there's been the Biggest-Granddaughter-and-Botanic-Gardens combo, always a winner.

And then annual photo of my Enormous Hippeastrum, nurtured all year for its week of glory.

And this.

And this.

 And this.

And this. We're so lucky to see so much of these little people. Don't grow up so fast, N and L!

And the spring garden, currently more or less licked into shape - not that this will last.

At last I've finished Biggest Granddaughter's quilt. Look! Triangles! Not quite professional standard, but it's a start. (Don't look too closely.) It took me almost exactly four months. I don't think I should try to do it for a living.

I finished it on Saturday and am already itching to start the next one. Thimbleanna, what have you done to me?

All the grandbabies

We've had a lovely week. On Monday we went up north to visit Son, Daughter-in-Law and Middle Granddaughter. Here she is having a sleep on her father, while he multitasks by also stroking one of their cats. (The piled-up sofa cushions are to provide a toddler-free perch for the furry friends.)

Then on Wednesday, Daughter 2 and Littlest Granddaughter came to visit. Grandson and Biggest Granddaughter are very good with her. They're experienced big cousins, since they also have younger cousins on the other side of their family. Son and his family came down for the weekend too, so we had all three of our children and all four of the grandchildren together, which was wonderful.

I may be biased but I do think she's cute.

Son bonded with his niece,

while Middle Granddaughter (that's her hand and foot) at least tolerated her.

But then they all went away. We took Daughter 2 and Littlest Granddaughter to the station and walked back through Princes Street Gardens. At last, after a cold spring, the weather has improved and people were basking in the sunshine.

After some time and effort, we got the house tidy again. I'm not exactly saying that this makes up for them all being away, but it's some compensation.

What one does in the retired life

I'm still trying to pretend it's not autumn, though today is the Autumn Equinox. But look: flowers in the garden. (Yes, all right, the one below is Sedum "Autumn Joy".)

The other day, Daughter 1, Son-in-Law 1 and I went with the children to the recently reopened Dalkeith Country Park. It was very enjoyable, though I wouldn't have liked to go there with fewer than three adults per two children: two to crawl after the children into the various tree houses and other structures into which they alarmingly disappear, and one to hold the bags and coats. This last person was generally me, I'm happy to report, though I did at one point have to scramble up this thing to get to the same level as everyone else:

As well as the alarming structures such as this tree house below - which actually had several storeys and the capacity to keep the children out of sight for a good ten minutes, argh,

there are also lots of smaller bits of play equipment such as this, below - much less stressful for the onlooker.

We were there for five hours (and it only costs £1 per child!) and the children were reluctant to leave, but then on the way out....

- well, to go back a bit, on the way in you have to cross this bridge and you can see this mesh tunnel affair that goes under the bridge and up the other side. The drop below, into the river, is about 30 feet. Grandson, who like his granny is a generally cautious soul, wisely decided that he wouldn't risk his life by crawling through it, as many other more foolhardy children were doing.

But then, as we crossed the bridge to go home...

he became braver. He went through it seven or eight times. Impressive, but bonkers. Granddaughter would have been game to have a go, but you had to be six years old to do it. (Grandson is actually five... .) It would be impossible, or at least very difficult, for an adult to go in to rescue a stuck child, though possibly the slender SIL 1 might have managed. However, this wouldn't be fun. Happily, no one got stuck and the tunnel seemed extremely popular among the children at the park (who clearly have no sense of self-preservation).

Then on Tuesday we went up to see Granddaughter M. I don't think Son wants me to show pictures of her so you'll have to take my word that she's beautiful. We took her for two walks and I got lots of cuddles. But then we had to leave her behind.

Yesterday Mr L and I went to see an exhibition, mainly of paintings by Charles Daubigny. I can't say I'd more than vaguely heard of Daubigny, but the exhibition was demonstrating his influence on Monet and Van Gogh, which does appear to be considerable. I'm not a huge Impressionist fan, but I thought Daubigny was jolly good. (I'm sure he'd be relieved to hear this.) His depictions of light are wonderful without being too blobby. (A career as an art critic was probably never going to be mine.) On the way in, we saw this girl in a white dress sitting on the grass in Princes Street Gardens, being photographed with her dress pooled around her. I thought at first that she was a bride, but if she was, none of the rest of the wedding party was anywhere near, so I suppose it must have been a fashion photo-shoot. (Why does there appear to be an advert for garden sheds at the right side of my photo????)

Afterwards we sat having coffee and looking out at the gardens and at this couple who were also admiring the view.

It must be admitted that some of the leaves were turning just a teeny bit yellow... .