Getting older

It's so lovely having at least one set of grandchildren near, though I can see that as they get older we won't see so much of them. Of course we want them to develop interests and have friends, and they're good company as they grow up, but on the other hand, they were cute as tiny people! I do love babies and squashy toddlers. 

Still, we do other stuff - life's full of activities, which we're lucky still to be able to take part in. On Saturday we went on a wonderful 6-mile walk around Gifford in East Lothian with our walking chums. 

It was a perfect day - mild and sunny - and miles just melt away when you're chatting. 

This is Bolton Parish Church. There's been a church here since 1240, but this one has only been around since 1809, built to accommodate 250 people. Bolton itself is a tiny village, but presumably the congregation was made up of lots of people from the surrounding rural area. Now the church is joined with a neighbouring parish and I'm sure far fewer than 250 people will be regular worshippers. Things change... .

The route was fairly flat but quite muddy in parts and in other parts it led through stubble fields, so it wasn't always terribly easy walking, so we were all ready for a sit down and a coffee once we got back to Gifford. It's a pretty little place. I imagine it's very nice to live there, though not if one wanted a lot of the facilities of a city. I don't imagine there's much public transport at night, for example. The above house dates from 1732, according to the inscription above the window in the middle of the photo. 

If you can avoid looking at the parked cars, it's easy to imagine what it was like hundreds of years ago. 

Littlest Granddaughter in London has had her fifth birthday. She wanted a science-themed party, so Daughter 2 made a science cake complete with flask, and set up various "experiments" for the children to do. Creative people don't do things by halves! 

Big Grandson, now 11, continues to spend lots of time drawing street scenes. This one is populated by polar bears modelled on his (very unrealistic) cushion/polar bear cuddly toy. In contrast, the vehicles are detailed and accurate. 

Grandchildren are so interesting. I mean, so are one's own children, but one has more time to appreciate grandchildren. 

Colours

It's been funny weather recently: either beautiful sunshine or rain, often alternating in quick succession or indeed both happening at the same time. I suppose perhaps it's just that it's autumn. 

We walked down to the local park one day recently and saw a display of different apple varieties. It was surprisingly interesting. They all had notices saying when they were developed and by whom. One of these said that its apple had been around since 1200. Really? I can't remember what it was called, but don't recall anything in, say, Chaucer, about any named varieties of apple. I'm intrigued to know where the records for this apple are, but I suppose the information must have come from somewhere. Or maybe it was a typo. The others tended to be from the 1800s or in some cases, the 16- or 1700s. Anyway, the room smelt wonderful - I'd never before thought of apples as being particularly fragrant. 

I'm making two quilts at once - quilting a dragon one for Medium Granddaughter and just beginning to sew together a dinosaur/vehicle one for Small Grandson (both at their request). I decided just to do simple squares for him because he's only 3, and won't care, but having cut out the nine-patches in a variety of fabrics, decided that it was all too busy and recut them in self-colours, or solids, as it turns out that Americans call them. So I have a lot of four and a half inch squares left over. 

I think I've fiddled with it since this picture, but I like it much better. 

Talking of liking things better, I had a little revelation recently. When Son went to New Zealand about 15 years ago, he kindly brought me a bit of blue glass, which has sat in the sitting room since then. I was dusting it the other day and noticed that it had a little signature on the top. Funny, I thought - such things are usually signed on the bottom. Experimentally, I turned it over. 

Oh! 

Biggest Granddaughter (9) painted my portrait the other day. I like my cheery smile and slim figure (if only). At the top, she drew some objects that she associates with me, which I thought rather sweet. These include a rainbow, many cups of hot beverages, my handbag, patchwork, biscuits (they don't get biscuits at home, oops), flowers, a watering can, and the magic pot. This last is a little wooden canister that sometimes has chocolate in it for visiting grandchildren. They call it "the magic pot" and fantasise that the magic pot fairy fills it up. You can also see this fairy illustrated. 

Autumn is happening at the Botanics too. Such yellow rudbeckia.

Such pink nerines. 

Such pretty foliage. 

Faster than fairies

Last week we took the train over the bridge to Kirkcaldy (pronounced Kir-coddy) to see the Jack Vettriano exhibition at the art gallery there. I don't know if Vettriano is famous abroad, or even in England, but he's quite famous in Scotland, being from Kirkcaldy. He's self-taught, and the art establishment tends to look down on him (one gathers) - maybe because of that but also because it doesn't consider his paintings as having artistic merit. Also, the subjects are a little bit sinister sometimes, and very much suggest a rather shady story behind the pictures. He always paints from photos, never from life, and sells his paintings for lots of money. Anyway, it was very interesting. 

He taught himself to paint by copying postcards and also prints from auction catalogues. Above is the real Monet; below is his version. 

Sometimes he changed them a bit. 

After a while he developed his own style and sold two paintings at the Summer Exhibition, after which he applied to Edinburgh Art College and was rejected because his "portfolio does not meet the standard". So he just went on painting. 

This is a very famous one of his - "The Singing Butler" - though it's not clear to me that the butler actually is singing. A lot of his paintings are of people in formal clothes - though sometimes he paints women who're more scantily clothed.

This one is "A Date with Fate". 

This one is "Live Art Show". 

I wouldn't actually want any of his paintings on my walls - they make me feel uneasy - but they seem good to me. Though what would I know? 

There was a little film about him, in which he says that for him, narrative is essential in painting. You can definitely see that in his work.

And then we had a little walk around Kirkcaldy, past this old milestone, saying that Dysart is 2 and three-eights miles from there. Very precise! My great-great-grandparents lived in Dysart, and their son, my great-grandfather, was apprenticed to a house-painter in Kirkcaldy. We have Great-Grandpa's indentures from 1869. Sadly, he died at 40, but not before fathering 8 children, 7 of whom survived him. I can't imagine how his widow managed. 

Then we walked down George Street, where Mr L lived for a while as a boy. 

And yesterday we were back across the bridge, this time by car, to visit Son and family. 

Which was lovely. The children are adorable; I wish we saw more of them but... it is what it is - as people tend to say these days. 

 

And so the days rush relentlessly on. 

Going gentle

On Saturday, Daughter 1 and I took the older grandchildren on the train to the Science Centre in Glasgow. Biggest Granddaughter, a bookworm, took 5 books to read on the train. One doesn't want to run out of reading material on a 50-minute journey. 

It was a beautiful day, which made it a pity to be going inside. However, I suspect it also made the science centre less crowded than it often is. 

Glasgow isn't Edinburgh, that's for sure. 

But it does have its merits. 

We built an archway. 

And looked at the way that sand moves. And generally had fun. I hadn't been at the centre with them since the summer before Covid, when they were newly 8 and 6 and a half. It was quite different going with them now that they're 11 and 9 and a half. Grandson was explaining things to me. 

Meanwhile in London, Littlest Granddaughter went to a pirate party, 

and here in the Botanics, today, autumn is creeping beautifully into our lives. 

Autumn isn't my favourite season: too much of the dying of the light and all that this connotes. 

But look at this lovely poppy - lovelier in reality than in my photo -

and nicotiana, still flowering away

and cotoneaster berries. 

There are compensations. And I shall attempt to be still here once the world turns round again. 
 

The good, the bad and the very impressive

We went away for a long weekend - last weekend - with our walking buddies. For the third - fourth? - time we hired the same lovely house in the English Lake District - Wordsworth country. It's so beautiful there. This is the view from the sitting-room window. We have a finely-honed routine: arrive Friday afternoon, lasagne and salad plus Sheena's sticky toffee pudding for dinner (building ourselves up for walking in the fells, we tell ourselves). Then a hillwalk on Saturday, which is always billed as not too testing, and isn't, apart from six miles of climbing hills and usually finding the odd bit of rock-scrambling not entirely designed for people in their seventies (and early eighties, and one aged 91 who is the fittest of us all). Baked potatoes, salad, cake and soft fruit on Saturday night, another, marginally less hair-raising, hill walk on Sunday, dinner out on Sunday night, a shorter, flatter walk on Monday morning, and home. 

Simple! Except...

The minute that Sheena arrived, she was very sick (in the British sense of throwing up, not being elegantly wilting). She went immediately to bed and was much better in the morning, Saturday, putting it down to food poisoning - she had had some prawns. She joined us in our jolly, 15-person walk. 

The weather was perfect - not hot, no wind. 

We happily tramped into the hills

and admired the views of the valleys below, where we'd come from. 

You can see why Wordsworth wrote poetry. 

And we got home and had dinner and then in the course of the evening, five others became inelegantly unwell. 

So the next day, Sunday, only 10 of us tramped into the hills. It was beautiful. 

We climbed up, 

Then towards the end of the walk, two others began to feel ill - including my poor husband. 

Back at the house, these two vanished to bed and we phoned the hotel where we'd booked dinner to say, sorry, there were going to be 8 of us instead of 15. Then, shortly, another bit the dust. So we phoned again to say, look, there were only 7 of us left - maybe it would be better if none of us came? But they said no no, just come. So we did, dubiously.

By the next morning, Monday, we were down to 3 - 2 of whom were beginning to feel a bit dodgy. I was the only one feeling fine. 

We all managed to get home and recover. I was still ok and by Tuesday night was congratulating myself on my superior immune system. Then at about 11.30pm on Tuesday... and all night... and a bit of the next morning... . 

I slept most of Wednesday and then felt sort of ok. 

So we convalesced in front of the tv and watched and wondered (retrospectively) at the Queen's funeral. There's no doubt that the British do pageantry well. The red uniforms! The furry hats! The feathery helmets! The marching and the bands and the processing and the multiple lifting and putting down of the coffin by very young men (I couldn't look, in case they'd dropped it a couple of days before and it had somehow not made the news), the solemn faces, the singing. I can't even begin to imagine what it all cost (and our economy's in shreds anyway). But it was impressive, you have to admit. 

Which is why (thank you for your concern, Virginia) I haven't posted for a while. And also of course, quilting.