Stravaiging

Our daughters and their families were with the other grandparents for Christmas this year - our son lives at a distance and doesn't have much time off, so we never see him on the actual day - so we were all by ourselves... violins. It was... peaceful. It would have been a bit pathetic if we'd not had each other. But we did. 

A couple of days before, we walked in the Botanics. 

Here's my favourite tree, the bald cypress. It is indeed bald at this time of year, but it's beautiful once it gets its leaves back. Here's my favourite old chap standing beside it. 

There were also what I'm choosing to regard as signs of spring. 

Or possibly autumn...

No, spring. 

I've had a terrible cough over the festive season, so in a first for him, Mr L marzipanned and then iced the Christmas cake!!! I didn't want to spread my germs on it. 

Look, artistry. 

Yesterday we felt like a change of scene, so instead of walking locally we took a bus up town and wandered about a bit. This is the Castle from a slightly unusual angle. 

This is the Grassmarket which, when we were young, was a disreputable place full of chaps down on their luck and too fond of the bottle, but which is now quite trendy.

Climbing up the Vennel steps.

Looking down them at the Castle. They've, bizarrely, become a tourist attraction because of influencers who take pictures of them at night in the rain. I would not myself want to climb them at night in the rain. You see a lot of atmospheric photos of wet Edinburgh on the internet. It does look quite shiny but it gives the impression that Edinburgh is particularly wet (it isn't) and that walking around in the rain, in winter, is fun. (It isn't. Edinburgh is also quite windy.)

Here's a bit of the Flodden Wall at the top of the Vennel. The wall was built in the early 1500s. See the arrow slits for shooting at invaders. Most of the wall is no longer in existence. Likewise the invaders, I hope. 

For the first time in my life, I've just this minute wondered what "vennel" means, and according to the internet, it's a narrow passageway between buildings (Scots English). Which is accurate in this case, though it doesn't explain why in Edinburgh, full of vennels as it is, this is the only one called that. 

Here's an example of incongruity along by the Meadows. No one can afford to build buildings with twiddly bits any more because builders are well paid, unlike in the past. Which is good. But I do like twiddly bits. 

Bits of the town were thronged with tourists, following along behind tour leaders who were telling them stuff about Harry Potter and Greyfriar's Bobby. Why were they here in December, on Boxing Day, instead of at their own firesides or perhaps sunning themselves in their gardens in the sunny climes they may come from? 

Then we walked down the Mound to the bus stop, struggling through crowds waiting at the bottom of the hill for the Christmas markets to open at 11am. 

In all this spare time, I finished quilting the 104 butterflies on the border of the rainbow quilt for Littlest Granddaughter. I was quite glad not to have to do 105. Now for the binding. I don't really like binding, or not the machining bit. Wish me luck. 

And Happy New Year when it comes. Surely the world will have sorted itself out by next December? One can only hope. 

 

The things of Christmas

I have been SO busy arranging the carol concert - but it all went well. We made £6000+ for our funds - well, minus quite a lot for expenses - and £1000+ for charity, so that was good. We probably won't sell as many tickets for our next concert in May, so a little cushion of profit will help to fund that one. Then we do an all-for-charity Come and Sing in June and after that my 3-year stint as chair will be over nearly two-thirds done. Hurray. 

Meanwhile, other people have done other things. Littlest Granddaughter made a robot (above) for her best friend - designed by her and partly made by her, though her mum helped. 

She and her mum and the other grandparents also went to see the show her dad is in, in Birmingham, and she sat on a throne after the show. You can see how she's posing. I hope she's not going to be an actor. I mean, we need actors. But corporate law probably pays better. 

And Biggest Granddaughter played the part of a charger in a panto at church. I didn't see this show so don't know the context. 

I'm off down to London again tomorrow to visit Daughter 2 and do some dishes. When I get back, I'll start concentrating on things such as decorating the house, currently a bit bare. 

 

No rest for the reasonably good

You have no idea (or maybe you have) how much organisation it takes to make a big choir run smoothly. How did anyone do it before email? Or perhaps the real question is: was it much simpler before email - where every decision has to be run past the seven members of the committee? I, as chair, do most of the stuff. It would be easier just to be a dictator. 

It's even easier just to be a back-bencher, as I am in my other choir.

The picture above is my final (I hope) arrangement of the seating for the concert, just in soprano1, alto 2 etc order. The peculiar shape is because of the constraints of the church where we perform. For the previous two concerts I allocated specific seats to specific members, and of course this meant that some people weren't sitting beside their friends. Sigh. This time I'm trying a free-for-all (what could possibly...?) apart from some people who need to sit in the front, or whatever, for various reasons - mainly of infirmity. I do tend to think that at the point when I can't walk very well (for reasons of age, I mean) I'll probably bow out of the choir. I mean, I say that now (at 75). I may feel differently when it's me!

Son and family came for the weekend and we went to the Botanic Gardens light show with Daughter 1 and her offspring. Here we are standing in a tunnel of fairy lights. 

And here are the children toasting marshmallows. Which were a total rip-off -three big marshmallows on a stick for £7.50! This included a dribble of sauce, post-toasting. But the children enjoyed it. 

It was very pretty. 

And a bit wet. 

Another day they went to a climbing wall / trampoline place. Here is nimble Medium Granddaughter up a climby thing. Rather her than me. 

 

And in London, Daughter 2 took Littlest Granddaughter to see her daddy's company doing a children's show. Her daddy, meanwhile, has been in Birmingham most of the time since the beginning of October, doing a Christmas show, and will be there till mid-January. Daughter 2 has been doing a lot of single-parenting. 

And now I must go and write more Christmas cards. Still too busy!
 

Waxing and waning

Well, that was Christmas. I hope that anyone reading this had a lovely time. Ours was busy, but good. Daughter 2 and her husband and Littlest Granddaughter came up from London and my brother, wife and their daughter came up from Cambridge. Here are Littlest and Biggest Granddaughters on a climbing wall before Christmas. 

And here is Littlest playing with her robot dog, which was her main present. We had both daughters and families (12 of us) on Christmas Day, and Son and family came down on Boxing Day (so 16 of us). 

We've done nothing spectacular: eaten a fair bit, talked a lot, gone for some walks - that sort of thing. Here are some of us at the Botanics. See that chap in a blue jacket at the end of the path? That's Biggest Grandson. He's growing fast! Where is that enchanting squashy baby who made me a granny?

Daughter 2 and family left the day before yesterday to go down to Nottingham, where SIL 2's parents live. And Niece left yesterday afternoon. So the party is shrinking, which is sad but peaceful. 

Nearly the end of 2024, then. That was a quick year. Still, we're still alive and well, so we have a lot to be grateful for. 

 

Happy 2024!

Well, we made it. By December 27 2023, we'd been married for 50 years. This has passed alarmingly fast. 

When the actual day dawned, none of our family could be with us, having Christmassed with their in-laws (but sent flowers and chocolates), so we'd decided to have a Jane-Austenish "At Home", inviting friends and neighbours to pop in for a drink and a piece of cake between 2 and 6. We didn't put RSVP on the invitations because we didn't want to make it like a formal party; also we didn't want people to feel committed in advance, the time of year being what it is. Some did reply but on the whole we had little idea how many would come. Obviously we did provide a bit more than cake. However, lots of people did come, and didn't just "pop", as we'd expected, but came and sat around and chatted. It was lovely, and also quite crowded! But fortunately we have lot of chairs. 

Then shortly after the last of those people left, my brother, sister-in-law and niece arrived, and shortly after them our second daughter with her husband and Littlest Granddaughter. 

On the 30th, by which time Daughter 1 and family had returned from down south and Son and family could also join us, we had a family lunch in a private room in a hotel - which was also very nice. The offspring had organised their children into matching clothes - a starry dress for the girls (10, 7 and 6) and matching jumpers (sweaters) for the boys (12 and 4). I have very cute photos! But they're unbloggable, because the photos contain The UnBloggables. 

And then we all came back here (except Niece and SIL 2, who had to return down south) and had a second Christmas for those who hadn't been here. 

We've thus had 10 people (plus Mr L and me) staying in the house, though no more than 8 (plus us) at one time. It was busy, but lovely. But the last four left on Tuesday, the bedding and towels are now washed, though the beds have not yet been remade, and the house is gradually returning to normal - or at least it will once we've deChristmassed it, which would happen today if I had time, which I don't. This weekend, however, everything will be away and we'll be tidy for a while.

My golden wedding present from Mr L? (We have enough stuff.) He shaved off his lockdown beard! He knew that I prefer his face beardless. (I do like his face in whatever form, so he's allowed to grow it again if he really wants.)

Happy 2024!
 

Busy. And then not.

It's spring! We have a snowdrop in bloom - only the one, right enough, and beside it you can see various holes made by squirrels either digging up other bulbs or burying nuts. However, one snowdrop is better than none. 

Daughter 2 has been up from London to go to her office night out (the main office is near Edinburgh) and we went to the Botanics light show with Littlest Granddaughter, Daughter 2 and the Edinburgh Two, This is a terrible photo but you get the idea. 

We looked after Littlest for a couple of days while Daughter 2 worked. We did lots of things such as playing badminton over a piece of string between a chair and the cooker (neither of us is very good), making ice creams out of Playdoh, reading books, playing Ludo without cheating... It was lovely.

Now they're down south with Son-in-Law 2's family, the Edinburgh lot are down south with Son-in-Law 1's family and the Angus lot are still up there. Mr Life and I will be on our own for Christmas Day - but things will become busier after Boxing Day, so we'll just enjoy the peace meantime. 

Happy Christmas to all commenters and lurkers!

 

Good times

Littlest Granddaughter went to the Hackney Empire with Daughter 2, to see "Aladdin", with Nephew playing percussion, including  comedy bangs and crashes. Here she is, pointing to him. 

Here he is.

And this is his photo of them - before the performance began, you understand. 

The interval. She is his greatest fan. He's been coming to perform in the Fringe in August, and staying with us, and she - also staying with us - thinks he's great. I mean, so do the rest of us. 

Meanwhile, Big Grandson and I spent a wet Sunday afternoon on the buses, which is BG's idea of a good time. And I like spending time with him so I have a good time too. We got a 43 to South Queensferry. 

We stayed on to the terminus, which was surprisingly far from the centre of the town, and when we got off the bus, it developed a fault. So we got a ... 62 or something? ... to the Gyle shopping centre and then a 12 back here for tea. It's quite fun getting on a bus and saying, "Where do you go?" and then saying, "Oh, ok, we'll go there."

Littlest Granddaughter was Mary in her school nativity play. Awww. 

 

Past and present

Daughter 2 sent me this photo the other day, which made me reflect about memory and the way it retains and discards things. As you can see, this is a small plastic skeleton, and I got it in a cracker at the Royal Scots Club when I was probably about ten, so about 63 years ago. I remembered this, but not giving it to Daughter 2 (not really sure why this happened). My grandfather fought with the Royal Scots during World War 1, and used to go up to the club to play snooker with friends; and for a few years he used to take us there for Christmas dinner. All that, I remembered. But I'd forgotten until the daughters reminded me that before opening the cracker I'd said something along the lines of wondering what was in it - maybe a skeleton? And then... ta da... there it was. I have no idea why I said this - it's hardly a typical cracker gift - and also have no idea why I forgot this part of the story. It would be more interesting if I could claim psychic powers from then on, but sadly, no. 

This is not a skeleton. It's a needle, and the best thing that happened this week is that I came to the end of daily injecting myself in the stomach with blood-thinners. Hooray. Not my favourite part of getting a hip replacement. 

The house is now looking fairly festive. 

Ho ho.

I would not claim to be completely ready for Christmas, however. 

The weather in Edinburgh has been very wet recently, so it was lovely to drive to the south-west today and find sunshine. 

Sadly, we were on the way to the funeral of one Mr L's cousins, but as often happens at funerals, we had a nice time chatting to various family members at the lunch afterwards. 

Some of them were cousins on the other side - the deceased cousin was the son of Mr L's uncle, while these cousins are related to the uncle's wife. They were very pleasant and it was quite a jolly event. But one always feels slightly guilty that the main player in the occasion isn't there to enjoy it. 

Having no cousins myself, I'm always happy to meet up with other people's. Mr L had eight of them, though sadly he now has only five. But we're in contact with them all, which I like. My family was very small - parents, one brother, a granny and grandpa who lived nearby, two childless aunts who lived far away and one widowed granny who also lived far away. I would have liked (so I tell myself) to have had more siblings and a gang of congenial cousins round the corner. Not going to happen now, though.