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. 

Away

We have been away in Wester Ross, in the north west of Scotland, staying in this little extended croft house for a week. 

We did lots of stuff, but also spent a lot of time on the sofa, reading books and looking at variations of this view. Sometimes the Torridon Mountains were only faintly visible, as above. 

Sometimes they were much clearer. Though it doesn't come out in the photos, we could see the sunshine picking out the varied slopes on the sides of them. Sometimes. 

The light was always different. 

This was 10.30 at night. Again, the photo doesn't do it justice, but I've never seen a rainbow after sunset before. 

Sometimes, in contrast...

I'm including all these photos of the same view so that I remember it. I really, really love Wester Ross and also Sutherland, which is a bit further north still. But it's a 5 and a half hour drive away and we're nearer 80 than 70 (well, I'm only 75 - just). Will we be back? Not sure. Poor old Mr L does all the driving because I'm frightened of big roads (though am fine with the tiny roads once you get up this far north). 

It's always seemed self-evident to me - without any logic whatsoever - that north is superior to south. I would much rather live in the country than a town (says she, who never has lived in the country). Ideally on an island. But this is a fantasy. I'd actually rather be able to see the family and indeed my friends, than live among rugged mountains and not see them. But if they were all there too... .

 

Wales. Railways.

We've been away to Wales, for the specific purpose of riding on heritage railways, which is Mr L's idea of a good time. He spends a lot of holidays walking round gardens with me, so it seemed only fair for him to get his fix of trains. We stayed in an immaculate bungalow in Tywyn, pronounced approximately tow-inn, which is very near the Talyllyn Railway. If you know, you know. So that was very good. There are a lot of sheep in Wales, as in Scotland, so the bungalow had lots of cute little sheepie touches, as above. 

Anyway, these photos are all in the wrong order, probably, but you get the general idea. 

This is a railway museum. 

This is Mr L on a train. 

This is the Mawddach Estuary. This part of Wales is very scenic. 

Another train. 

View of Bala Lake from a train. 

This was the main reason for the visit at this specific time - it was the 75th anniversary yesterday of the restoration of the Talyllyn railway. Lots of bearded chaps took part in a ceremony to celebrate this. Many photos were taken. 

Yesterday also happened to be Mr L's 78th birthday. This is his haul of presents in the immaculate bungalow. A lot of it consisted of railway books. (Yes, we're supposed to be decluttering, but seemingly railway books are immune from this process. Mind you, other books will be too.)

And then today we drove home. It's quite a long way. But isn't Wales lovely? 

The old chap is also rather nice. 

This week's actual decluttering didn't happen on Monday, because we were away, but there's some stuff on the spare room bed waiting to go, and also Mr L had sent away some old cameras to a company that buys such things. They only gave him £30 for them, but on the other hand they're no longer in our house. 

The trouble with the immaculate bungalow is that I came home and immediately wanted to redecorate the whole house and buy new furniture. But the feeling has now worn off. 

Doings

So in brief: we went to the Tirzah Garwood exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery - interesting, since we'd seen the Eric Ravilious (her husband) exhibition there some years ago and I've read her memoir.

Her art was very varied. 

and in various media.

I had a lovely visit to a school friend's house, and met her partner. M and I were never particularly close at school but we were friendly, and I always liked her. It's been so nice to reconnect. 

And then we came home and Littlest Granddaughter also came (to her) home and reconnected with her guinea pigs, which we had managed to keep fed and watered. 

Apart from that, it's been a flowery time. These mecanopsis were at Branklyn Gardens in Perth, which we always like to visit. 

And we met up with a very old friend, also M, and went to Little Sparta, about an hour's drive away, which is the garden of poet and artist Ian Hamilton Finlay. We've been meaning to go for ages, and when M - who lives in London - said that she would like to visit it, that was the spur for us to take her. M's mother and mine were friends in London during the war, specifically during the Blitz, and her mother was my mother's bridesmaid. 

It's a very pleasant garden

with various art installations and inscriptions, some rather mysterious. 

And then, at home, all is very floriferous.

A neighbour (whose front garden is mainly paved, with some neatly trimmed small bushes) said to me yesterday that she liked the wild effect of my garden. 

I know what she meant, but it takes a lot of work to achieve such a wild effect. 

And that's me just about caught up with our doings, though frankly I don't really know why I do this...
 

A-wandering

We've been away with the Edinburgh family to Paris. Notre Dame's repairs are not finished yet, by any means. We didn't go in but we did watch huge cranes bringing materials in. I would not like to be a crane driver. Imagine climbing up that huge ladder! 

We were there primarily because the children wanted to go, Big Grandson partly to ride on the Paris metro and Big Granddaughter because she wanted to go abroad (and is learning French). I've been to Paris several times, and while it has many beautiful buildings, it's too much of a big city for me. But it was nice being there with the family. We did many of the touristy things. 

These included a day at Versailles. The Hall of Mirrors was very impressive (as it was the last time)

though the best bit (for me) may have been the tulips. We were very lucky with the weather, which was warm but not hot. 

We visited the Musee D'Orsay. Big Grandson likes (understatement) trains (and it used to be a station) and polar bears. He has a toy version of this polar bear by Pompon, and brought one to meet the other. He's 13 and a half and did this half-ironically, but half soppily. 

It's a good museum/art gallery, with lovely Art Deco furniture as well as paintings and sculptures.

The lad got to ride on many metros and some buses, so was happy. 

Our hotel, the Hotel Eden, was lavishly embellished with ornamental apples, which Son-in-Law 1 didn't notice at all till they were pointed out on the last day, at which point we discovered that Mr L had observed them but failed to make the connection with Eden. I tell you...

And on the way back, we spent the weekend with Daughter 2 and family, during which we went to the Young V&A, which was very good. I don't like huge cities - I find them oppressive and scary and I hate underground railways - but London does have some nice stuff. 

I was very happy to get home, though, especially as we have Daughter 2 and Littlest Granddaughter with us for some Easter childminding. And then next week - back to the rainbow quilt. 
 

Richmond

We've been away for a long weekend with our walking chums to Richmond in Yorkshire. There were ten of us, staying in a big house, and we had a lovely time. Most of us have known one another for forty or fifty years, so it's very easy to be with them and we have a routine for catering for these weekends - baked potatoes and salad for dinner the first day, lasagna the second and a restaurant for the third. Sandwiches and fruit for packed lunches and George and Gill make the breakfasts. Simple!

The weather on Saturday was beautiful and we had an easy five-ish-mile walk on the outskirts of the town, via Easby Abbey.

It was built around 1152 and sacked on the orders of Henry VIII - as were so many abbeys and monasteries - in the 1530s, but there's quite a lot of it left (it was HUGE). 

We walked back along the River Swale. 

The next day was a lot harder!

None of us had done this walk before and it was trickier than it looked on the map. 

There was quite a lot of uphill,

a fair old bit of "path" like this 

some walking along beside quite steep drops - this isn't one - I couldn't take any photos for fear of plunging to my doom. We came to Williance's Leap, a memorial for a horse which fell several hundred feet off an escarpment with its rider. The horse was killed, while the rider bounced on the horse and... well, let's say he survived but it was a gory story. So encouraging for those scared of heights (me). 

And then we came down again to the river and we thought, ah good,

but then had to go up again for a while because the river bank disappeared. 

But it was all fine, especially once we were back in the house, drinking tea and other things. Five and a bit miles if it were flat, but there was a lot of climbing and (harder on the knees) getting back down again. 

We had such a good time; lots of laughs and silliness. I feel very lucky still to be able to do such things and to have such good companions to do them with. 

We've agreed to go back to Richmond next year. I hope we're all still alive!