How not to be bored

Life is busy but not, never, boring. The other day we took the little ones to the Botanics, always one of my favourite ways of spending time. The sun shone.

Grandson played with sticks and admired "his" tree.

It used to be no. 17 Tree, but since his family has moved house it's become no.21 Tree. It has (according to him) front and back doors, front and back gardens, stairs, a television and a bed. What more could a boy want?

Yesterday we had an outing with our walking group, passing Peffermill House (above). It's famous for the story of Half-Hangit Maggie, who, having been hanged in 1724 for giving birth illegitimately and concealing the birth (and possibly killing the baby) was brought here in her coffin. There was a tavern in the grounds of the house; and while the men who were transporting the coffin to the graveyard were having refreshments there, she woke up and banged on the coffin lid. She was let out and, judged to have paid the penalty of the law, was allowed to go free.

Then we tramped past the ruins of Craigmillar Castle, one of the residences of Mary Queen of Scots. She had ultimately less luck than Maggie, poor soul.

And today we had the family. We played Snakes and Ladders and Granddaughter played with a dice. Or, if you like, a die, but no one really calls it that any more. Son-in-Law 1 suggested that it should be a douse, by analogy with mouse, which does seem an attractive idea. And now I must go to choir.

Two of them

We were playing in the sandpit. Granddaughter got really quite sandy.

Grandson looked to the side. "There's a woodmouse," he said.

I was surprised but impressed at his detailed knowledge of species of mouse. I looked but could see no mouse.

"Where?" I asked.

He pointed. To a woodlouse.

Nearly.

That got me thinking about plurals. I suppose the plural of woodlouse is woodlice. Certainly the plural of headlouse is headlice. But how about the sort of story in which a woman says, "He's a louse. But in my opinion, all men are...".  Surely not "... lice"? Might it be "... all men are louses"? I don't read that sort of story enough to be sure.

(Note that this is a fictional piece of fiction. I don't myself hold this view of men. And in Scotland we usually call woodlice slaters, thus avoiding the plural problem. I believe that they are pillbugs in America.)

Stripy jumper

Grandson put a little man in the back of a Duplo trailer. "Is he sleeping," asked Daughter 1, "or just resting?"

He considered. "A combin-ation," he said carefully. This was the first time I'd heard him use a four-syllable word and I think he wasn't sure whether it was one word or two.

Mr L is often seen in combin-ation sleep/rest mode on the sofa in the afternoon.

His jumper matches my sitting room very well, though our rug always comes out in photos as a rather more lurid colour than it actually is.

And then he went to get his hair cut. It was a bit chilly outside, hence the pink nose.

Eggs and died foot

Just for Thimbleanna - my quilt is coming on, thank you, somewhat hindered by Cassie, whose ambition is to sleep on it. I still have quite a few circles to quilt and then I need to bind it. Will it be finished by Christmas? Certainly. (I hope.)

Now: a sequence from this afternoon.
1) Granddaughter plays with rattles and things. Notice particularly the one at the apex of the triangle of toys: a sort of drum-shaped rattle with red ends (and bells inside).

2) Grandson approaches.

3) Grandson picks up the rattle and gives it to her. "Look, [Granddaughter]," he says. "A egg. A nice egg for your breakfast."

So interesting (and, I realise, so normal) to see interaction plus imagination - imagination based, I think, on Mog (the cat created by Judith Kerr. Mog liked an egg for breakfast).

Later on he picked up the smaller of his two Thomas the Tank Engines and gave it to her. "A little Thomas for you, [Granddaughter]," he said. "You can eat it." And she had a jolly good try at doing just that.

 

He spends a lot of time making vehicles go round and round the coffee table, inching them along in sequence.

Occasionally he stops for a snack, sitting on his little chair. Milk and died foot*.

* Dried fruit

Words

Granddaughter decided to wear something really feminine yesterday. I wonder what she keeps in her pockets?

She and Daughter 2 had a bit of a chat.

Today we fished out a 25-year-old copy of "Spot's First Walk" and Daughter 2 read it to Grandson. He really...

... really enjoyed it. Even on the fourth reading. He likes books. "Words," he says gravely, pointing at them.

In a quiet moment, he perched on his chair and looked at "Ant and Bee" - another book we bought for our children when they were little. My brother and I had had a copy of this when we were children. "Smile for Granny," I said, and he did.

Then he returned to the important matter of his book.

Never get into a stooshie

We were staying at Portmadog, which has a very pretty harbour. You can't really go wrong with boats, water and a bit of sunshine.

Daughter 2 was with us, along with Mr Life's cousin, who - we found out relatively recently - is interested in trains.

The countryside, though lovely, was still winter-coloured: brown rather than green.

On our first day we went up the line to Beddgelert which, it must be admitted, was somewhat rainy.

Our spirits were not dampened even though I think my umbrella may have seen better days.

This is Bodnant again. The gardens are spectacular. We've been before, but in autumn, when everything was blazing with red and yellow and orange. This time, spring was springing.

I liked these frilly hellebores.

Lower down the garden is a dell, with interesting slate formations and lots of rhododendrons and azaleas.

Doesn't colour do the soul good after a long winter?

She didn't fall in.

The meaning of yesterday's words, in case anyone is interested: stocious means drunk (we weren't); perjink means neat and tidy - sometimes (but not always) too neat and tidy to the point of fussiness (you may judge from the photos how perjink we were); drookit means drenched (see bus shelter picture); shoogle means shake-and-wobble (like an old narrow-gauge train); wappit means weary, the way you feel after a long journey or after flu.

Today's words - first, as used today by (English) Son-in-Law 1 today (he's picked up a bit of the lingo) stooshie. It's quite comical hearing him say this in his rather refined English accent but as he says, it would sound silly if he affected an Edinburgh one. "No need to get into a stooshie - Mummy's just about to feed you." I'm trying to think of a translation but a single word doesn't spring to mind: it means get worked up in an unnecessary fashion.

And another couple that arose today - not that they apply to my house at all, I would like to point out. There's stour or stoor - I would spell it stour but it's pronounced stoor: dust. The adjective is stoury. And then there's oose, which is that fluffy stuff that you find under furniture you haven't moved for a while - pronounced oooosssss.

Wappit

We have been away in Wales.

On narrow gauge railway trains.

Such as this one.

To make the weekend slightly less train-heavy, we went to Bodnant Gardens this morning.

They were lovely. To my mind, even more lovely than trains. But it's a matter of taste.

On re-reading my previous post, I feel compelled (because I am a pedant) to point out that though "Go lights" may actually sound like a sentence (with the imperative verb "Go"), it actually isn't because "Go" is an adjective describing the lights. Just in case anyone thought I didn't know what a sentence is.

I do realise that no one thought about it for even an instant apart, possibly, from Fran.

I noticed us using various Scottish words over the last few days and jotted them down for your edification: stocious, perjink, drookit and shoogled. ( None of us was stocious or particularly perjink. We did get a bit drookit at one point. The trains shoogled. I trust that makes everything clear.)

Now I must go and do some piano practice because I didn't take the piano with us so couldn't do any while we were away. I feel a bit wappit, though.

Bup my buppoo

Grandson and I went to Saughton Park today. It was damp but not raining. He dressed for the weather. "Boots," he said appreciatively.

We admired the crocuses. Well, I did.

He admired this lawnmower. "Wheels," he said. Then it began to rain very slightly so we put up our hoods.

After a while, we went into the greenhouse and walked round admiring the plants. "Flowers," he said.

Then we went home and he played with his toys. This is his Thomas. It speaks when you press its funnel. It says, "My name's Thomas. I'm a really useful engine. Bust my buffers."

Grandson has lots of words and joins them together to some extent - for example, "Hello Gaga", "Go lights". But his only actual sentence, it occurs to me, is "Bust my buffers", or as he puts it "Bup my buppoo" (giggle giggle). I've no idea what he thinks it means; in fact I don't really know what I think it means.

There's an educational lesson there for teachers if I could only think what it is: concentrate on your pupils' interests? Or possibly: rote learning is useful but only if the pupil has the remotest idea what they're learning.

(PS I think some modern architecture is lovely. As Daughter 2 points out, architects often can't design what they want to because of various constraints: the site, regulations, money - it's often money (old buildings were built by exploited and underpaid labourers with materials from countries we had conquered), the client's wishes. I don't myself think that this excuses the orange panels but hey, some people like orange.)

Sitting in my baffies

Here's another picture of the woobie, a word which has now entered my vocabulary along with "go dights" for green traffic lights.

The other day we were having a family blog-related discussion about language, sparked off by our son's using the word "outwith". I don't think that's a word that's survived in Standard English but it's quite common here. It means "outside" though is often used in a non-physical sense, eg "If you have a medical emergency outwith the normal consulting hours...." or "It's not outwith the bounds of possibility that... " I remember being at a Book Festival event featuring Garrison Keillor and he mentioned his surprise at seeing this word on a notice: something like "Please do not stand outwith the area marked for queueing".

"Queue", there's another word - fine in Standard English but not, I think, in American English. When my friend and I went to America in 1970, we had to go to a Social Security office to get a Social Security number and asked a group of people, "Are you in the queue?" Incomprehension on all sides. Mind you, our accents probably didn't help.

It's funny that even in Scotland we don't use "inwith", but instead "within". And yet we no longer use "without" to mean "outside" except in the hymn "There is a green hill far away / Without a city wall", which was always confusing when I was a small girl.

"Bauchles" is a Scottish word. It refers to baggy but comfortable old shoes. I'm fond of wearing bauchles myself. And Mr Life says "baffies" for slippers, though he's from a different part of Scotland - a whole - oohh - fifty miles away. It's not a word that my family would have used before meeting Mr Life, but my baffies are on my feet as I type.

Finally today, let's consider the word "daidlie", which means napkin. I had no idea how to spell it so I've just looked it up. I was offered: daidle, daddle, dedle, daidlie, daidle and dedley. It may come from dialect English dwile, dwoile, dowly, meaning a washing rag, and Middle Dutch dwele, a towel.

So now we know.

It was a lovely day today - sunny (though not actually warm) - and I got the garden tidied up and the grass cut. It made me feel fair joco; or as you might say, really quite jolly.

Doting [Gr]Anny

Now this, bloggy friends, is Granddaughter sleeping peacefully under the afghan and woobie so very kindly made for her by Dianne of "A Month of Sundays". Sorry that Granddaughter doesn't look particularly grateful at that moment, but I'm sure she will be once she takes more interest in the world, and we certainly are. Thank you so much, Dianne! And now everyone knows what a woobie is: a security blanket, I suppose we'd call it. It has lots of interesting ribbons round it. The afghan we'd call a shawl, or at least I would. (Like some commenters, I think of an afghan as a sheepskin coat, apparently not long separated from the sheep and not greatly altered from its original state, as worn by hippy types in my youth.)

Today I took Grandson to the Botanic Gardens. He's been there often but mainly, in the past, he's been in the pushchair. He had a lovely time rambling around, as did I. It's so wonderful being a retired granny. When I was a young mum I always had an eye on the clock and needed to rush off to collect someone from school, take someone to a ballet or piano lesson or just go home to clean the house or make a meal. Now, I devote myself to him. He enjoyed walking on the chipped bark...

 ... but then discovered a pile of dead leaves, which provided a lot of fun. I don't suppose he'd ever kicked his way through dead leaves before, because last autumn he wasn't really walking. It's such pure joy to watch him discovering the world and such a luxury to have the time to allow him to do so.

It was chilly, though, as you can see from the jacket, hat and little pink nose.

Then we went home. His speech is coming on fast. He likes to narrate a car journey ("Bus! Car!"), his latest topic being traffic lights, which combine his favourite  interests - vehicles and lights (or dights). We approach a red light and he remarks, "[S]top!" It changes to green: "Go dight!"

And at last - AT LAST!!! - he has given me a name. Mr Life has been Gaga for months. The other granny, Nanny, has been Nan for months also. Daughter 2, whom he sees once a month, he calls by a name which resembles her own. Son, whom he sees even less, gets the first syllable of his name. Goodness me, he even called Niece by her name last weekend and he hadn't seen her since Christmas. But me? - just that anonymous old lady who turns up at his house a lot.

As from today, however, let me present myself: 'Anny. [Bows]