Doing things

My baby boy turned 40 a few days ago. How did that happen? I certainly won't be around to see him turn 80 but I hope to stick around till his 50th, when I'll be 84. We'll see... He was a very sweet child, a bit shy, as he looks here. Now he's a GP, husband and father - and lives at some distance, sadly. However, we're going up to see them on Saturday. 

Life's been very busy (when is it anything else?). We had some lovely weather, and Biggest Granddaughter and I had fun blowing bubbles in the garden. 

Then our American visitors arrived for a few days. 

A few months ago I got an email with the subject title "Hello from your American cousin". It wasn't a name I recognised, so I was intrigued. It turned out to be from Jane (under her married name). She and I share a common ancestor who was born around 1800 - my 4xgreat-grandmother, who is also her 3xgreat-grandmother - so we're not exactly closely related. However, Jane's great-aunt lived in Edinburgh and was my lovely Granny's mother's cousin (are you following this?), and we knew her, and through this connection, various members of my family, including myself in 1970, visited Jane's parents' house in Kent, Ohio between the 50s and early 70s. Jane was 11 at the time of my visit. Jane's mother, grandmother and sister also stayed with my parents, I think in the 60s and 70s. Our mothers kept in touch but there really hadn't been any communication between the families after Jane's mother died in 2006.

However, it was lovely to see Jane and her daughter Chelsea. Chelsea is technically the same generation as me, but she's in her thirties - the generations have slipped somewhat. They were visiting Scotland, and finished with a few days with us in Edinburgh. We did the usual tourist things. On Monday, for example, we went to the Castle in the fog and slight drizzle - not ideal for the views of the city from the Castle walls, but we'd pre-booked our tickets so we went. 

On Tuesday we went to Rosslyn Castle, which is now a tourist destination (and on our Americans' list) thanks to The Da Vinci Code - which I have neither read nor seen. Mr L read the book and declared it to be piffle. However, piffle or not, the book and film have been wonderful for the chapel, which featured in them. Previously, it was leaking so badly - and the Earl and Countess of Rosslyn couldn't raise the money to fix it - that a huge plastic roof was erected above it to keep the rain out, and thus it remained for 14 years. In those days, one could just wander in, say ah, yes, and wander out again. 

But now - the chapel gets so many visitors, who pay to visit, that it's all been fully renovated, including the roof. There's now a very nice visitors' centre, with a cafe and shop and various displays, and you have to buy a timed ticket which includes an excellent talk about the history. Amazing! Good old Dan Brown. 

The inside of the chapel is very, very ornately carved, though no one really knows why. It was begun in 1446 by Sir William St Clair, who planned a cruciform church but only got round to having the choir part built before he died, so it was closed off and remains today as a small church. There is the famous story of the apprentice who carved very fancy spirals on a pillar while the master carver was away researching how to do this, and when the master returned, he was so jealous of the beautiful carving that he killed the apprentice. I don't suppose it's true but it's a good story. The chapel was attacked at the Reformation, but remains mainly intact. 

The outside carvings have suffered with weathering over the past 600 years, but are still interesting. 

We also did other things, such as walking up the river and through the Dean Village. The sun shone that day!

So it was lovely to see them, but I now have Things To Do. 
 

Here be dragons

On Saturday, Son, Daughter-in-Law and their two arrive for about a week, and on Sunday, Daughter 2 and her little one arrive for three weeks. In the middle of August, my brother, sister-in-law and nephew and his fiancée will be here for about a week also. This is obviously all very nice, but will be busy, so I've been getting Big Granddaughter's dragon quilt to the stage of being pinned together, ready for hand-quilting, so that the fabrics and sewing machine could be tidied away. I was about to go up town to buy wadding the other day but thought I should just check that the odd bits I had wouldn't be enough to cobble together. And the first photo shows an arrangement of every last bit I had!

So, with saving the planet - not to say our bank account - in mind, I crawled around the floor for some considerable time and sewed it all together. I hope the planet appreciates this. My knees weren't so sure. 

I'd already done the front, but I had the back to make, patching it together the back because surely no one else I know will want dragon fabric. (Obviously it needed a bit of a trim. And an iron.) Apart from dragons, the back mainly features books because she's a total bookworm. 

It's all embarrassingly simple but she's only ten and now it's done. And it was fun to do. 

And then I packed all the fabrics away. Mine are arranged in categories: plain, stripes, spots, checks, animals and birds, flowers and leaves, Christmas, and then whatever doesn't fit any of these descriptions. I did once try arranging them by colour but too many of them had multiple colours. And anyway, I always seem to end up riffling through them all to find just the right thing. I need a bigger cupboard but - no - that way would madness lie. I will never use up all that I have. 

It's been very wet in Britain generally, but the rain cleared yesterday and we went out for a walk along the river. 

It was very full. 

Today the sun shone so I hope that's us back to normal summer weather. Not sure that it is, though... .

 

They came and they went

Well, that was a long gap - almost entirely because of this little person, who only left here to go home - with her mum - yesterday. Her mum, Daughter 2, has been working four days a week and we've been looking after Littlest Granddaughter, who is fairly full-on. And then of course, when she goes to sleep (very late - Daughter 2 stays with her till she does) then we want to chat to Daughter 2. Son-in-Law 2 has been up with his improv company for the entire month of August too, though not staying with us. And our musician nephew has also been with us, though he's no trouble. 

Littlest was always pleased when Big Grandson (now 11) and his sister (9) came round. She thinks they're wonderful. 

Having her here doesn't make for a tidy house. 

We did things during the day, such as going to the Botanics. It took her quite a long time to approach the gates by hand-over-handing herself along the fence, but it didn't matter. 

She enjoyed picking our route through the gardens and playing in the willow tunnels. 

Another day we went to the museum. That's a huge inflatable E Coli bacterium she's looking at through the balustrade. 

These are models of alligator eggs. You have to press buttons to "keep them at the correct temperature". She was keen to do this. 

There are lots of things to play with. 

Our musician nephew wasn't around very much but when he was, he got roped in as one of her assistants. He was very tolerant. 

The art installations in the nearby gallery gardens provide playing opportunities. We call this one "the bus shelter", though it's not. What it is - who knows? 

On Saturday we went to Dundee to meet up with Son, Daughter-in-Law and their two children. There they are in the distance, scooting along the waterfront. Mr L and I followed rather more slowly. 

There were scooshy things to play in - fountains that come up from the paving. The children had such fun. They got very wet, but Daughter, Son and DIL had come prepared with spare clothes. 

But yesterday all the visitors went away. Mr Life and I spent the afternoon mainly sitting in a big, sad (and exhausted) heap. But today we've pulled ourselves together a bit and have been busy changing beds, putting away toys and so on. Normal life will resume shortly.  

 

Visiting and visitors

Well, by some miracle we got away, nobody else developed Covid and we had our holiday by the sea. There were twelve of us: two daughters, one son, one son- and one daughter-in-law, five grandchildren (11, 9, 6, nearly 5, 3), Mr L and me, in two houses a couple of minutes' drive apart. 

Was it good fun? Mostly. Was it restful? Nope. Did the children enjoy it? Yes, almost all the time. The 3-year-old boy thought the 11-year old boy was splendid, the two little girls thought the 9-year-old girl was wonderful and the two bigger ones were pretty patient with the little ones. Nevertheless, rallying twelve people and feeding them is quite challenging! But everything went pretty well and now we're home. 

Son was very good at playing with them in the garden. They loved it. 

He's quite strong! 

And beaches are always popular. 

The little gang. 

Besties. 

Besties again. 

Engineering works. 

Our nephew, a musician performing at the Festival Fringe, arrived the day before we left and looked after the house in peace while we were away. Now it's slightly less peaceful because the day we got back (with Daughter 2 and Littlest Granddaughter), Daughter 2's friend, her partner and four-year-old son arrived for four days - the partner has a film at the Film Festival. And they're all lovely, and the two four-year-olds are having a great time together but it doesn't make for a tidy house. And tonight our nephew's fiancee (please imagine the accent on this) is arriving for a week. Nephew and his young lady are no trouble at all but the house will now be officially FULL.
 

Sightseeing with Frogdancer

This is very exciting: Frogdancer of Dancing with Frogs https://dancingwithfrogs.wordpress.com/author/dancingwithfrogs/ (I've been told how to do the proper linky thing but can never remember) came and stayed with us from Wednesday evening till this morning, ALL THE WAY FROM AUSTRALIA. Well, admittedly she didn't come over solely to visit us. But she did come. Here she is at Edinburgh Castle. It's not a good view either of the Castle or of her but I suddenly realised that not only was the sun shining but she had her sunspecs on, and I wanted to record this for posterity. I have to admit that the sun didn't shine all day. We've been having very changeable weather with lots of brief showers.

We went down the Royal Mile from the Castle (earliest bit 11-something) to the Abbey and Palace (earliest bits 11-something and 16-something). On the way we visited Gladstone's Land (14-something) and John Knox's House (16-something). Fortunately my visitor likes history. Here she is listening hard to the audio guide. I shall send her a quiz on it next week.

Another day we went to The Georgian House and the Botanics. Here she is, reclining elegantly on a Botanic bench.

Look, the sunglasses are on again as she smells a sweet pea.

She points out... not really sure, but you have to admire her pointiness. I couldn't actually get her to remove the jumper/sweater, despite Edinburgh's best sun.

Later we went to dinner at South Queensferry. Note how, in case of evening chill, she was carrying a poncho to go with her jumper.

This is the view from the restaurant window. She hadn't heard of the Forth Bridge. She has now. I believe that Australia has at least one famous bridge, but is it pink? Well then.

Having done London and many of the picturesque places in England before she came up here, she's now off to do some more of these before heading off on an amazing tour of the Continent: Amsterdam, Paris, Rome, Lucerne and all sorts of other places. Check out her blog if you want to be exhausted at the very thought of it... but I'm sure she'll have a ball. Thanks for your visit, Froggy!

Never give up...

This fine motto was on a bag left behind by the tenants in Daughter 2's Edinburgh flat. We found it when we cleaned the flat in preparation for the next tenants. We rather liked its bizarre optimism and the interesting use of the comma.

Which links fairly tenuously with the subject of the remainder of this post: our lovely little African guests - in the end only two of them, with their chaperone (American; also delightful). We've hosted members of African children's choirs before and our previous children were also memorably engaging.

The children are all from poor families; some are orphaned and all would have been unlikely to get much schooling. Being chosen for one of the choirs means that they go on tour, singing and dancing, and the money raised will pay for their education up to university level. This choir is from Uganda and they've been on tour for sixteen months: they've visited 38 American states as well as Britain. Next week they go to Ireland and in November they return home. This sounds a bit Dickensian but as we've found before, the children seem to love it and adapt amazingly well to their strange (temporary) lifestyle.

P and S are 10 and 11 (approximately - they're not really sure) and are - I can't praise them highly enough - happy and enthusiastic and funny and clever and polite and affectionate and grateful and interested and tidy and organised and uncomplaining and curious and ... well, everything that's good. I remember our previous visitors as being just the same. P and S have been playing with Lego in our house and enjoying it so much. I asked them if they'd seen Lego before. "No," said P. "It's maybe in the shops but we can't afford things like that." She didn't sound in the very slightest sorry for herself; just matter-of-fact. And I looked at the huge pile of Lego that our children had and thought... hmm. Of course we're not allowed to give gifts to individual children because, apart from anything else, they'd have to carry them wherever they go.

They have lessons and rehearsals in our church during the day and we collect them at 5pm. They really want to learn (and I think guiltily of how I used to feel about school when I was a child... .) When we arrive, all the children are busy and very well-behaved; almost alarmingly so. Then they're told that they can go and they ERUPT into giggles and cartwheels and squealing and bouncing - and they're enchantingly normal again.

I'm really going to miss P and S. I hope so much that life is kind to them and they never lose their sunny outlook on life.