Hothothot

We have been down to visit Daughter 2 in London. We were supposed to go the previous week, but postponed because it was SO HOT, but actually it was pretty hot when we did go. We didn't do anything Londony, because who wants to be even hotter? But we did the odd useful task, such as a bit of gardening (me) and erecting a guinea pig run from a kit (Mr L). 

This was popular. 

I had my 76th birthday on July 4 (happy 250th, USA) and Daughter 2 laid a fancy table, with my mum's tablecloth and Mr L's mum's china, on orders from Littlest Granddaughter. 

I admired Daughter 2's tissue box and wondered if I could make a quilt of it. 

There was scooshing of water to cool down. 

And Daughter 2 and Mr L put up a sort of sail (this was it in its unfinished state) to shelter their kitchen windows from the sun. Not sure it's a long-term solution. 

When we got home yesterday, bollards celebrating Edinburgh's 900th birthday had sprouted in the streets. Evidently it's 900 years since King David 1 established us as a burgh in 1124 - which makes it 902 years ago, but never mind. Maybe we're trying to be slightly rude about the relative youth of the USA? Anyway, I'm sure Edinburgh was a (small) town long before that. Our oldest surviving building dates from 1130-ish. 

It was relatively cool here yesterday, but today it got up to 26C-ish, which is 79F-ish - much too hot for me. But it's not too bad in the house. Too hot for gardening, but I took some photos. Everything is flourishing. 

Including the weeds. I don't mean the clematis above, which I love. It's mostly the little willow herb, which hides among the plants and suddenly pops up with a million seeds. It's pretty enough, but not in my garden, thank you. 

 

We have (mainly) had fun

We have been quite busy. Summer has at last arrived, so we've been in the garden a bit. 

And played with Lego and other stuff. 

We have trampolined with the cousins (well, I just spectated),

played in playparks, 

visited Jupiter Artland with family members, 

where there is art in the woods

and there are huge "landforms" to run around

and a weird sort of statue thing, which the kids always like (surprisingly).

We have visited the beach

- and Vogrie Country Park, also with the cousins. 

So we have not been idle. We have had fun, and some of us have had ice cream. 
 

Human life

Life trundles by. We've now passed the longest day, but so far the shortening of the daylight isn't noticeable and summer flourishes on, though the hot weather has blessedly cooled down a bit, even in London, where it's been extremely hot. 

I've finished the quilt top with dragons on as requested by Big Granddaughter. She chose all the fabrics, most of which were from my stash, though I had to buy the dragons and the purple and violet solid fabrics - which are not really to my taste. There was a big gap between my starting and finishing it, because I put it away when we had visitors and then somehow never got it out again till a week ago. I don't love it, but it's what she wanted and it was very easy. It's actually considerably brighter than it looks here. I was somewhat reluctant to do her a dragon quilt because I made her a rabbit one only five years ago and she now says that her tastes have changed - the difference between five and ten years old (which seems about a week to me). I can't really see her liking dragons for long either. Still, there it is - for now. I shall have to get on with quilting it.

Unbelievably, Big Grandson has now finished with primary school and will go on to secondary in August. He had three orientation days last week, which he enjoyed, so that was good. And now it's the Scottish school holidays. He celebrated this by going on a bus/tram trip round Edinburgh with his father yesterday, while I took Big Granddaughter and her friend to the local trampoline centre. They both went on this terrifying slide thing, though her friend dared to go further up than she did. 

Then we went back to Big Granddaughter's house and they did various crafting activities. Big Granddaughter made an abstract painting. "This is supposed to reflect human life," she said. "I'm trying to be philosophical."

Frances asked about the flowers in the night-time picture of the garden in my previous post. The yellow is yellow loosestrife, which is a bit of a thug. I like it, but dig most of it out at the end of every year, which keeps in more or less in control - though it's got away from me this year. The lilac coloured sprawly things on the right are penstemons - the one taken as a cutting from the other. There are dark red peonies at the back and a pink begonia semperflorens in a pot on the right. 
 

Summer sun

Life whizzes on at an alarming rate and we're busy busy busy with gardening, family things and a bit of socialising. We went to Vogrie Country Park with the Edinburgh Two the other week and walked through the woods...

looked at frogs in the river - and stuff like that. 

I had a coffee outside the art galllery and it was chilly for June. But I was served by a girl from Sicily, who said it was 48 degrees there. I'd much rather be chilly. 

But then it got warm. The garden is flourishing. 

Summer. 

I love it. 

The indoor plants are flourishing too. 

Big Granddaughter decided to get her hair cut much shorter. 

And Big Grandson got the Brio out. 

Daughter 2 and her husband have built a climbing frame for Littlest Granddaughter in their new garden. It was quite a lot of work. 

And we walked along the coast with our walking friends. 

Such a lovely day, with nice people. 

When all the family were at ours the other weekend, Medium Granddaughter asked if I could make her a dragon quilt. Whereupon her little brother asked if I could make him a dinosaur quilt. Well, obviously yes! I didn't have any fabrics featuring dragons or dinosaurs so sent for a couple of each. The trouble with buying fabrics over the internet is that sometimes the patterns don't turn out to be the size you expect. Those middle dragons are rather large! - though I like them. Hmm. By contrast, the dinosaurs are maybe too much the same size. Needs some thought. 

And back to the garden: it's clematis time. 

I love them. So do snails.

Big Grandson (who's about to be 11! - how did that happen?) loves drawing street scenes and trains, such as this picture that he WhatsApped yesterday. The perspective isn't quite right but there's a lot of detail. He has about six sketch books full of pictures like this. It's so interesting, watching them all grow up - a consolation for getting old. 

Summer!

It's been good weather for cats.

Cloudless.

Our boy, who was home for a few days, went away again on Saturday morning.

We miss him.

Later I took Daughter 1 and my mum to the gardening show at Ingliston.

Pretty orchids.

And alstroemeria. And lots of other flowers and plants, which I restrained myself from buying.

On Sunday morning it was hot again. This was the main road when I went out to buy a newspaper.

We drove through the Meadows (a park) to get to church.

Our church is near the beach.

The Edinburgh Marathon route went along the promenade yesterday, though the runners had passed by the time we came out of church. It was, the papers said, 22 degrees Celsius - 71.6 Fahrenheit - which is hotter than I imagine one would chose for running such a distance. Or any distance at all, in my case. Scotland doesn't get much warmer than this, thank goodness.

In the afternoon, Daughters 1 and 2 and our son-in-law went to the beach at Gullane and swam in the sea. The sea here is always extremely cold, especially when one's body is warm from the sun. Rather them than me. But they had a lovely time with friends.

Today: the heatwave continues. 66 papers marked. 154 to go. Back to the kitchen table I go, to get on.