Peachy person

Daughter 2 and her little peach have been here again - she's been having meetings in Glasgow, how lucky for us. We get to look after Littlest in her absence. Littlest chose some books and then "read" them to the wooden cat that I bought 30 years ago.



"I reading story to my cat. There go, cat, you read it."

She and I went to the museum. She carefully pressed buttons to make wheels go round.

And watched a balloon being filled with hot air and floating up towards the ceiling.

She communed with Dolly the sheep - "the most famous sheep in the world", according to the label. There may not be that many contenders for the title.

At one point my back was sore, so I fetched a museum stool for me to sit on while she looked at things. This didn't go entirely to plan.

And then on Saturday, I went with the two girls to the Botanics, which are showing a lot of colour.

Beautiful primulas.

And beautiful girls. It was quite breezy but as usual, the aeolian harp wasn't singing. Edinburgh's a windy city, but I've only heard the harp once, despite my many, many visits to the gardens.

Turn, turn, turn

Still trawling through the archives. These are my grandfather, grandmother and mother. She was their only child. I wonder why? My grandfather had lost a lot of hair by this age, 29. Most of my male ancestors tended to be thin on top. Surprisingly, Son's hair is still very thick at 35. Grandpa was shot in the hand at Gallipoli, a few years before this. No wonder he looks a bit wary. 

Daughter 1 made this Mother's Day card for me when she was a teenager. Just what I like: flowers, blue and white china and tea.

Son dictated this to me when he was about four and couldn't write yet. And now he is big and we do go to his house, a situation which seemed unbelievably distant then. I wish it was a bit nearer, though.

The Edinburgh grandchildren decided that it was sandpit weather. (It wasn't.) Grandson constructed the Panama Canal in the sand. Canals, water pipes, drains and sewers are his latest interest. Can't see it, myself. I mean, I'm all in favour of these things but prefer just taking them for granted. Still, I'm glad others pay more attention to them. 

 And it's spring in the garden.

Or at least...

I'm choosing...

 to interpret things...

 this way.

Being little

Daughter 2 and Littlest Granddaughter have been here. Look at Littlest, "hiding" under the quilt that Thimbleanna gave me some years ago, before she'd made serious attempts to get me quilting. Isn't it pretty?

The Edinburgh grandchildren are so nice with Littlest. She's getting quite tall now. You can see that I've moved tempting objects to upper shelves on my unit on the back wall, though actually she could reach those glass things on the third shelf if she wanted to.

They had an obstacle race in the garden.

Littlest joined in, though she didn't entirely grasp the concept and sometimes picked up obstacles and ran with them.

But then she got a horrible cold. Here she is, taking an unaccustomed nap and breathing her germs straight up my nose. With predictable results. But it was worth it to sit there with her in my arms as she slept.

She perked up, though, and did lots of drawing. "I dawing on table," she said, enthusiastically. Hmm, probably you shouldn't be on table, sweetiepie, but we won't let you fall off.

And now she's back in London with an ear infection. Little Grandson up north - never a good sleeper - has a nasty cold too and woke up every hour last night. Parenthood isn't easy. It whizzes past - in retrospect - but it doesn't feel like that at three in the morning.

Yet more pictures

More from the archives - my rather handsome father-in-law and my (perhaps less striking) mother-in-law. Sadly he died in 1984, when Son was 12 days old. Granddad said, when he first saw Son, that he'd always wanted a grandson. He'd been tactful enough not to say this when we had two girls first. And then he took ill and died. Very sad. And she died in 1992. Poor Mr Life.

I found a diary that I kept on a French exchange in 1967, when I was newly 17. It was a simultaneous exchange, so that the partners were in the other's country and weren't there to amuse each other. This weekend apparently wasn't the most successful occasion. We'd gone to the family's country cottage, where there was nothing at all to do. The parents didn't seem to be getting on with each other, though Richard, the little brother, was very nice. 

On Saturday we went for a town walk with our walking group. We went along a cycle/path till we got to the Queen's Park and then went round our beautiful city hill. It was a lovely day.

Then we had coffee at Holyrood Palace, Her Maj wasn't there. She has a few problems to sort out, poor soul. 

A few days later Mr L and I were back, this time to see the Leonardo drawings at the Queen's Gallery. The portrait on the brochure is of him, by a pupil,

as is this one. Like my father-in-law, he looks like quite a handsome chap. (Sorry about the reflected spotlights.)

The drawings are amazing. This is a study for the head of Leda when she was about to be seduced by the swan. The finished picture fell into a ruinous state and was destroyed in the 1700s. Hmm.

This is a map he drew of a town near Florence. He paced the streets and took bearings from a tower in the central piazza and then constructed the map by geometry. It's apparently very accurate.

(Reflected spotlights again.)

A horse. Such movement. The very essence of horse.

A cat. Such stillness. Such catlikeness. (More spotlights.)

He had all sorts of projects that he sketched in his books, most of which he never finished or in some cases doesn't seem to have started. (We're all a bit like that...) I wonder whether he died (at 67) frustrated at these unfulfilled plans or if the pleasure was in the planning and in some cases he never really intended to carry them out? - such as an encyclopedia of botany or a treatise on anatomy, many sketches for both of which are in the exhibition.

This is our parliament building. I don't think it's very attractive. I wonder what Leonardo would think? 

This is me, drawn by Middle Granddaughter. I don't look like a model. Well, sadly, I don't look like a model. But how cheerful I am.

Pictures

We went to the BP portrait competition exhibition (the last one, since the galleries have decided that BP isn't very suitable as a sponsor, hmm) the other day. This portrait got third prize. I know it's very photographic and some people think you might as well take a photo but look! The skill in using paints in such a realistic way!

Look at the veins and the slighly chipped nails! Her clothes are slightly bobbled and the hot water bottle is a bit grubby. Amazing! I'd have given it first prize, myself.

Another day we went up to visit the Unbloggables. Little Grandson is so cute! - full of grins, so soft and squashy and trying to walk - as yet unsuccessfully, since he's only eight months.

Medium Granddaughter is lovely too.

I'm continuing my trawl through the archives. Here's Son at 3. He was very cute too, in my maternal opinion.

This is from a 1948 newspaper, the year that Mr L was born. Sixteen babies died that week in Edinburgh and lots of older people from diseases that sound Dickensian, like phthisis. I didn't know it was still called that then.

This dates from when Son was a little boy, probably seven, when he announced that he'd drawn a rude picture. Somewhat horrified, I investigated. Not too rude, really.

And here's one of Mr Life's great-grandfathers. This means that he's our grandchildren's great-great-great-grandfather. How wonderful (I hope they'll think, one day) to have a photo of one's great-great-great-grandfather. I know the names of mine, but that's all.