Time flies like an arrow...

Big Granddaughter is 12! How did that happen??

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And we went to the Botanics, where...

spring...

is...

definitely...

springing...

at least...

as far as (some of) the rhododendrons are concerned. 

 

Spring

Spring is a-cumin in and Littlest Granddaughter can play in the park after school. 

The great excitement in her life is that she's now got two guinea pigs. She's thrilled! I hope they live long lives...

Daughter 1's garden wall fell down during Storm Eowyn (well, it was pushed over by a blown-down buddleia in between it and the fence next door) and today Darren the Patio came and sorted this out. 

It's now all fixed and much smarter, with a smaller wall which can be weeded behind, and slabs for putting pots of flowers on, maybe?

My friend Janet wanted a fish tank with fish in it, but her family persuaded her that it would be a lot of work, so she got her friends and family to colour in a fish each and she's mounted these. I sent the daughters a photo of the finished "tank", and asked which one they thought I'd done, and within something like 20 seconds, Daughter 2 had screenshotted (is this a word?) the correct one and sent it back to me. How well she knows me! I wasn't surprised at the correctness of the answer, though the speed did surprise me somewhat. (It's the lower middle one with a yellow face, blue body and stripy fins. It's a bit pale compared to some of the others.)

Crocuses and daffodils splashing their colour in the garden. Gosh, a garden - or at least, mine - is a lot of work at this time of year.

These come up by themselves, but I've been slaving away cutting down last year's herbaceous perennials and waging war on bitter cress and that little willow herb with surprisingly long roots. Still, it's all worth it. I do love flowers. 

 

Big wind

Well, spring is springing here, or at least the end (ish) of winter is being a bit flowery. Most things are still pretty dormant, but you can always find something colourful at the Botanics. 

Azaleas or

skimmias or

witch hazel or 

just a little robin. Traditionally, robins here are known as robin redbreasts, but their breasts are really orange. We didn't have a separate word for orange (as opposed to red) until actual oranges arrived here, and their name then got made into an adjective. So this is really a robin orangebreast. Doesn't have quite the same ring. But Christmas cards tend to have robins with red tummies, such is the power of language versus observation. 

I've started to cut out a quilt. It's to be a rainbowish one, so against all my principles I'm going to have to use some orange fabrics. I have to admit that Richard Of York Gave Battle in Vain. 

We've had a Big Wind, Storm Eowyn, which has done a lot of damage, though thankfully not to our house or garden. This happened on the path beside the golf course (apologies for the blurry photo) but, much more seriously...

this happened in the Botanics: its tallest tree, with 14 others, was damaged beyond remedy.  

This is what it used to look like - the tree right at the bottom of this path. Very sad. But worse things, much worse things, are happening in the world. 

Away again!

We've been away again - not really like us except, seemingly, this autumn - this time to Crieff Hydro. We were there in the summer with the family and then the Hydro sent us a 20% off offer so we thought... well, why not have a couple of nights just by ourselves? It's very familiar territory - my family went there for the summer holiday every year from when I was 3 to when I was 12, and then we've been back fairly often over the years with our children, with my parents and my brother's family and then with the grandchildren and other family members. It didn't occur to us till recently that this was the first time we'd been there on our own since our honeymoon! It's only about an hour away and we only went for two nights, so it was very easy: not much packing or planning. 

The first full day, we visited Drummond Castle Gardens, dating from the 16th century, though obviously changed a bit since then. The autumn colours were beautiful - much better than shown in the photos. 

We've been before, but I don't think in the autumn. They're lovely at any time of year. 

These leaves look good enough to eat.

Then in the afternoon we climbed the Knock, as one has to do when staying at the Hydro. This is a hill just behind the hotel. 

I just can't express how much I love this place - the only trouble being that it's steeped for me in nostalgia: memories of my parents, of my small children, of my baby grandchildren - all now gone or different. However, the memories are happy ones. 

My parents' ashes are scattered under one of these trees. 

 

And then the following day, on the way home, we visited Scone Palace Gardens, where autumn was again very lovely. 

We had such a nice time. And we'll be back - I hope!

Boring post about flowers

Well, it's all about the flowers at this time of year. My own garden (it's Mr L's too, technically, but he'd probably just have grass. Or not even that) needed a lot of attention - all the bulb leftovers had to be removed, or not if they were still green; and the weeds engendered by all that rain followed by quite a lot of sun had to be discouraged; and also all the many, many pots that I plant up at this time of year had to be filled. Why is my smallish garden so labour-intensive? Well, of course because I made it so, when I was in my forties and fifties. And I like looking at it when it's finished, although of course it's a garden and is never finished. I do actually enjoy a bit of gentle weeding. But I'm definitely getting a bit old and achey. Still, use it or lose it, or so I tell myself. 

I saw one of those things on Facebook the other day. It featured a scientist walking along the road, saying that extensive research has shown that there are five words which, if you say to yourself, will improve your mood - whatever that mood is at the time. So of course I listened to the end, and it turned out that these words were, "These are the good times". Would that improve your mood? It surely means, "This is as good as it's going to get". Which, when you're nearly 74, isn't that encouraging. No doubt it's true, but what's the point of thinking that way? I mean, things are fine. But I'd prefer to be 24. Even at 24, I don't think I'd like to be told that that was the best time. It was good, though it was also extremely stressful at times, being a high school teacher in quite a tough school. But there were better things to come, like for example all our lovely babies and grandbabies, not to say a long career of teaching in further education - which had its difficulties, but not nearly so many. 

Anyway, back to the flowers. It's a lovely time of year, with many alliums

and irises

and more irises

and another,

and look at this thalictrum - I only bought it last year and it's wonderful - it's been blooming for weeks. I do have another, much less interesting variety of thalictrum and over the 35 years we've been in this house it's become a thug and is everywhere. However, I won't be here in another 35 years so if the big pink one has spread everywhere by then ... hey ho. 

Oh, another iris. 

Saughton Park, quite near us, is lovely at this time of year. 

It's very allium-ish.

and lupiny

Here are my lupins. 

And then, in the Botanics, lots of lovely mecanopsis. 

So. Flowers. Very cheering. 

I must not start another quilt till I've got back to the archives. And must not die till I've made some decisions about what to keep, and have actually disposed of some of it. My parents both had interesting lives, much more varied and worthy of note than mine (school, university, three different teaching jobs, retirement). So the archives are mainly theirs, which makes it difficult. And then also of course... we have too many photos. Haven't we all?