Fresh air and exercise

I've decided to stop calling our decluttering "death cleaning" - a bit depressing. It's now Minimalising Monday; though if Mondays are too busy it can actually happen on another day. This Monday we took my mother's crystal bowl to a charity shop. It's been in our house since my lovely mum died in 2012, and I've never used it. I have several crystal bowls that I do use, and this one, because it's shallow, takes up a lot of space. 

And we took Mr L's old bike to a bike place where they refurbish them for good causes - youth groups and so on. 

We've also arranged for a charity to come and collect the books we're getting rid of. They're coming on May 5, so we need to tackle the books in the other rooms before then. I love a deadline. And Mr L is decluttering his old cameras. 

On Saturday we went on a lovely walk with the gang round Gosford House in East Lothian. 

The weather was perfect. 

This was our lunch spot. 

Reflections. 

Six miles, including walking along to the golf clubhouse for coffee overlooking the sea. 

And then home on the bus.

My little cercis chinensis is looking good, with its tulip entourage. 

Yesterday I was up town and admired the view from the bus stop.

And look at these frilly tulips in the garden! So pink. Lovely spring. 

 

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. 

 

On! On!

How is life so busy? How do other people manage to post every day? Anyway, I went down to London again on the train - nice views, see above - to try to be slightly useful to Daughter 2 while her husband is at the Birmingham Rep. I'm not terribly useful really, since Littlest Granddaughter reasonably enough prefers her mum to do things for her, rather than her elderly granny. However, I collected Littlest from school one day, did some dishes and cleaned out the guinea pigs. 

This is Chingford, where Daughter 2 and family now live. It's really quite nice - it doesn't feel at all like London, but rather like a small town. Which it was, of course, though has now been swallowed by London. But just along the road from D2's house you're in the Essex countryside. 

I did do a small amount of gardening, though it was rather cold. Can you see me down near the bottom of the garden, doing some minor weeding? I'm the black lump near the slide, or as we'd call it in Scotland, the chute. 

The way home was brightened by kittens! 

Very cute. 

Son and family came for the weekend I got home, which was lovely. Then,  after rather more socialising than I had time for early in the week, I had to get stuck into the church magazine, of which I'm the editor (it's not finished yet), and quite a lot of choir stuff. Mr L and I took our banner up town to attach it with many cable ties to the railings in the street outside the church where our concert is, St Cuthbert's, as is normal, but we then got an email to say that the council, which owns the railings, has decided that no one is allowed to put up banners any more. So the next day we had to go up and unattach it, but the church admin chap has allowed us to fix it to railings outside the church door, which is invisible from the street. This won't be as good, but it's something. 

Considering the ghastly things with which the centre of Edinburgh is currently cluttered - a big Christmas market which cuts off the view of the Castle, a huge Ferris wheel, a terrifying spinny thing that sends people round and round AND UP AND UP - the council is being a bit pot-calling-kettle-blackish. However, there are worse things happening in the world. And how. 

Meanwhile my other choir, the one of which I'm (thankfully) not the chair, is having its concert a week on Saturday. I've missed quite a few rehearsals through being in London, so I should really do a bit of practice. Not today, however! On! On!

Balerno to Slateford

We went up to see Son and family the other day. Here are the children feeding deer at a deer centre. 

I'm sure the deer are perfectly well fed, but they were all very keen to eat the pellets, cunningly sold to us by the centre. 

It was a lovely day. 

Today we did the recce for a walk we're leading with the walking chums in November. It was a perfect autumn day. 

We walked along the river path from Balerno to Slateford. It's all in the city, but feels like the country. 

It's mostly along a former railway line. Here, a tunnel has been painted inside, much of it illustrating the poem "From a Railway Carriage" by Robert Louis Stevenson, who often visited Colinton (on the route of our walk) because his grandfather was the minister there. It's a poem that, in my youth anyway, was much anthologised for children, and we learnt it off by heart. 

From a Railway Carriage by Robert Louis Stevenson Next

Faster than fairies, faster than witches, Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches; And charging along like troops in a battle All through the meadows the horses and cattle: All of the sights of the hill and the plain Fly as thick as driving rain; And ever again, in the wink of an eye, Painted stations whistle by. Here is a child who clambers and scrambles, All by himself and gathering brambles; Here is a tramp who stands and gazes; And here is the green for stringing the daisies! Here is a cart runaway in the road Lumping along with man and load; And here is a mill, and there is a river: Each a glimpse and gone forever!

It's a good poem, full of rhythmic energy, and the painting was splendid.

Here's RLS himself in the tunnel. 

And here's the rather pretty church. 

The path was mainly very easy and the weather beautiful. This is through the window of a grotto along the way. 

Still, by the end of the 6+ miles we were quite tired, and glad to reach the Water of Leith Visitors' Centre for a sit-down and a cup of tea. We're 77 and 75, after all. It was a wonderful day, though. 

 

Being a lady

I seem to be rather busy - though I have to confess that some of this busyness consists of coffees and lunches with friends. But then there are the two choirs and the church magazine and the family and the garden and walking and general faffing about. How do other people, eg Lynley of Lynley Quilts, manage to make a quilt a week, when I'm still plodding on with the rainbow quilt I started in April or so?

Anyway, there isn't much reportable, other than the garden, which is still colourful, such as with the lilies (above) that I bought at the Chelsea Flower Show. 

And these cosmos and sedum,

and Japanese anemones - pestilential but pretty - 

and these autumn crocuses - though I'm denying that it's autumn - 

and nicotiana

and fuchsia

and various things in pots

and verbena bonariensis, which I love, though it sets seeds willy-nilly

and more cosmos. 

I was up town the other day and things were beginning to look a bit autumnal.

I was up town again today. Not a bad view as I waited for the bus home. 

But this was exciting: Anna of Thimbleanna was in Edinburgh with her aunt last week, and she kindly invited me to go to a Scottish baking afternoon at a cookery school. I thought it might be quite tiring, but it wasn't at all. We sat at a kitchen island and were brought everything we needed, already weighed out. All we had to do was a little ladylike mixing and then put the results in baking trays or cake tins, which had been pre-lined by someone else. And whenever bowls or spoons were used, they were whisked away and replaced by clean ones. We weren't allowed to put things in the ovens ourselves (health and safety) so someone else did that, and then took them out in due course, and it was all carefully timed so that everything was cool at the same time. Then we were given a plate and told to take whatever we wanted from our own goodies - cranachan cake (raspberry with oatmeal), meringues with cream and strawberries, cheese scones and shortbread - and go through to a dining room, where we were plied with tea, coffee and prosecco and sat eating and having a nice chat. 

I could easily get used to something like that!

And it was lovely to chat to Anna and to meet her aunt, who is 89 and looks about 65. She has 7 children, 27 grandchildren, 35 great-grandchildren (with more expected) and a great-great-grandchild. Wow!