Away

We've been away for a little holiday - the first on our own, I think, since before lockdown. We were just in south-west Scotland - Galloway - which is lovely. On the way to our hotel, in Newton Stewart, we visited Kirkcudbright (pronounced Kir-coo-bree). This is the 16th century McLellan Castle. 

We visited the home of E A Hornel, one of the Glasgow Boys group of artists. He had no children, so left his house to the town and it's now run by the National Trust. The house, built in the eighteenth century and added to, is interesting, but the star turn is the garden, which is still laid out as he had it, and beautifully kept. 

We were lucky in the weather. There's an artist in residence, Ewan McClure, who wasn't there, but we admired his paintings. 

Then we went to the Kirkcudbright Art Gallery, and they had an exhibition of Ewan McClure's paintings upstairs, so we climbed the stairs and there he was. We recognised him from a self-portrait in the studio. His paintings were very lovely - portraits, landscapes, streetscapes, still lifes (one that I would definitely have stolen...) - though not cheap. We chatted to him; he was very nice, even though we didn't buy anything. We have no room on our walls, even if we'd had that sort of money to spend. There was a room with a little video of him painting, and this is it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbUT6zd6HpI - Ewan McClure Self Portrait Time Lapse. I don't know how to do the little screen thing but I do recommend looking at it in Google. What he did was to put up a one-way mirror with a camera behind it, then he looked into the mirror and painted his portrait more or less from behind the canvas. It amazes me. 

The next day, Mr L's 75th birthday, we went to Logan Botanic Gardens, which were lovely but will be lovelier next week, I think. Still, they had quite a lot of colour, including my beloved mecanopsis. 

Also very big fish - my foot is there for scale. 

Then we went to the nearby Castle Kennedy gardens, which had more plants blooming and were generally wonderful.

I think this is a mallow.

That was a big rhododendron. 

Ah yes, gardens. So good for the soul, especially if someone else does all the hard work. 
 

The river

The only trouble about having visitors is that while they're there, one doesn't do the mundane householdy/life-task things. So in the last few days, we've been boringly doing these. And you know how it is: you do something and then realise that you have to do something else first. But today the sun shone and it was warm and we walked along to the gallery for coffee. Look! People sheltering under sun umbrellas. (No, it wasn't exactly that hot.)

Then we walked down the steps and home along the river. These aren't the right sort of bluebells - they're the Spanish variety, and a terrible weed - but they look pretty. 

The trees have suddenly burst into full leaf. 

The river flowed very smoothly. 

In the park, the cherry blossom is mainly on the ground now, but it's still bonny. 

These blobs on the river are a mum and dad mallard and their two babies. I'm sure there ought to be more babies, but - well, let's not think about that.

And now I must go and do some more boring tasks. 

 

Blessings

Daughter 2 and Littlest Granddaughter came for the weekend (since Monday was a Coronation-based holiday) and we watched the spectacle. I felt that this was a bold choice of frock for this singer, but am not known for my flamboyant fashion choices so I may be wrong. 

I don't really have any terribly strong views about the monarchy. It's a daft system but on the other hand it seems to work fairly well. Even if they were deposed, the royals would be very rich, and they do work fairly hard, in their way, for their money. Much harder than most aristocrats, I'd think. Poor old Queenie was still at work, at least a bit, shaking Liz Truss's hand, three days (was it?) before she died. From my advanced age of nearly 73, I realise that old people have - if nothing else - a longer view of things than the young do. In my lifetime, many Prime Ministers and presidents have come and gone, endlessly changing, but the monarchy gives us some continuity. Which I think is good. 

According to Daughter 2, the Coronation cost us £100 million, Since Charles was king already, did we actually need it at all? Could no one think of a better use for £100 million? However, since we paid for it, we watched it, and if we're talking about flamboyant frocks, boy, did we see a lot of those on HM, his family, various bishops and archbishops and so on. There was some beautiful embroidery, applique (sorry, can't do accents) and so on. 

And marching. We do good marching, even in the rain. 

It's all a bit daft. 

On Sunday we went to the Botanics and Littlest pretended to be a statue. 

And there was lots of playing in her blanket-den-house. 

and the first sandpitting of the season.

But now they've gone again and as usual, I'm bereft. All this coming and going fairly takes it out of me. Well, the coming is fine. It's the going that never gets any easier. 

Still, at least we all like one another, unlike the poor old royals, with Harry and his shenanigans. He should count his many blessings. As should I. 

 

Whistlestop tour of Scotland, or bits of it

My very nice cousin (well, our parents were cousins) and her equally nice husband, who live in Georgia in the US, visited us for a week and we went around to see some sights. My cousin loves gardens so of course we visited Edinburgh's Botanics on their first day. Then we went to the Georgian House (a house in the New Town furnished as it would have been in the late 1700s) and wandered through Princes Street Gardens. 

Cousins, Wojtek the Bear and the Castle. 

Another day we visited Dawyck Botanics in the Borders, hoping that their rhododendrons and azaleas would be flowering. But annoyingly, though Dawyck is well south of Edinburgh, there wasn't a flower - I suppose because it's much higher. Still, my cousin likes trees and there are lots of those. 

While we were in the vicinity, we went to Traquair House, the oldest inhabited house in Scotland and lived in by the Stuart family since 1491. The main gates have been closed since 1745, when Bonnie Prince Charlie was defeated in his attempt to reclaim the British throne for the Stuart dynasty, and they won't be opened till a Stuart is back on the throne. This means that since 1745, visitors have had to arrive by the "temporary entrance". 

One day we drove up to meet Son and family in Dundee, first visiting Branklyn Gardens in Perth, which though much further north than Dawyck had a splendid show of colour. 

While we were there, we visited Dundee Botanics as well, where some things were in bloom. 

On Sunday we went out to lunch in Gifford with Daughter 2 and family, and while waiting for the food, played that game in which someone draws a head and covers it up, someone else draws a body and covers it again - and so on. My cousin's artist husband drew the excellent feet.

Our cousins wanted to visit a coastal town so we took them to North Berwick. In the rain. The weather had been beautiful the week before their visit but during their week, the sun remained obstinately hidden. This was the worst day, though in fact it didn't rain hard; it was mainly low cloud. Not that this was good! 

Hmm. 

It was, as my cousin politely said, atmospheric,

This is the Bass Rock. At one point it was completely invisible but then it appeared out of the mist, like Venus from the waves. 

Is that the sun up there? Just about? Still, I imagine that they get sun in Atlanta. Sea mist, not so much. 

And now they're back home, and the blue poppies are out in the garden. The sun is also making an appearance from time to time. Too late!

Pink

Most, though not all, of the daffodils are over but the tulips are coming into their own. It's been beautiful weather here, so I've been enjoying tidying the garden, though alas my arthritic hip has not. Still, onwards and upwards. 

This is brunnera - it lasts so long and is a beautiful blue.

More tulips. 

Today we walked to the Botanics, admiring this beautiful blossom on the way. Coincidentally, I've just been browsing the internet, as one does, discovering that the house belonging to this tree, which is about five minutes from our house, is for sale for £5 million pounds. Of course, interestingly, one can see inside it, on the particulars. Sadly I don't think we'll be buying it. It's very beautiful, with an acre of garden (which we visited last year under the Scotland's Gardens scheme). But it's a bit big for our retirement. Also slightly (vastly) beyond our budget.... There are lots of very posh houses not too far away from us - and no, we don't own one - but I hadn't thought that any houses in Edinburgh were worth £5 million. Astonishing. 

There are still some daffodils at the Botanics.

But it's mainly the rhododendron season. 

And very...

pink.

By the time we'd got home, it had dulled down and become rather chilly. This is a pity, since we're having lovely American cousins to stay next week. And the weather forecast isn't promising. Sigh.

 

Plodding around

The weather has been glorious over the last few days, which is perhaps a pity, since we're having American cousins to stay next week, and it can't last... We went out with our walking friends on Saturday and did five miles round Dundas Castle, which was lovely. The castle is now a wedding venue. 

We ate lunch by this (artificial, I think) lake. 

The last of the daffodils were still blooming. 

This was a sweet little cottage with a heart carved above the window. Sad, since it's now a ruin. 

Looking inside, you can see a brass bedstead. Very poignant. I wonder who lived there. 

Today, Mr L and I walked up the river from Stockbridge, having taken some things to charity shops in the never-ending attempt to have less stuff. We managed not to buy any books at the Oxfam book shop; well done us. 

This is St Bernard's Well, though I don't think St Bernard had any part in it. 

There were lots of tourists taking photos. 

I took one of the old chap. 

 

 

The river just flows along. It'll be just the same when we're gone. Which I find reassuring; though I'm not planning to go any time soon. 

Keeping the brain alive

Daughter 2 and Littlest Granddaughter came back to Edinburgh with us for the Easter week. It was lovely having them. We did things such as playing on the Landform at the art gallery near us. 

Littlest contemplated the penguin-lady sculpture. 

And then Son and family came to stay too. The little ones played pretty well with one another on the whole. We went to the Cammo estate, as above, and they went to the museum without us, and then we all went to Dalkeith Country Park with the Bigs, and there were various other things such as playing in the garden, getting wet/making "healing drinks" out of water and petals/doing obstacle courses. I have lots of unbloggable photos. 

The last of the family, Daughter 2 and Littlest Granddaughter, went this morning, and as usual I'm very down in the dumps. However, they're off to Brighton for a mini-break with Son-in-Law 2, so I'm consoled at the thought of them having a nice time. 

56 days ago, Big Grandson (being considerably more technically competent than I) started me on Duolingo for both French and German, and I've been keeping it up. My French is reasonably good - I did it for 7 years at school and one at university - but on the other hand, this was some years ago. I learnt German for less than 3 years, so my German is much less good, though things like word order have stuck fairly well in my head. I was never a very conscientious pupil, so didn't put much effort into learning genders, which didn't, and still doesn't, help my fluency. But I'm a better and wiser person now. However, Duolingo goes very slowly, so that after 56 days I haven't really learnt much. I should have started further on in the course with both. Also - one shouldn't complain, because it's free, but it uses American English, and I hadn't fully taken in some of the differences between it and British English. Duolingo sometimes doesn't accept my English translations of things, such as when I say "at the weekends" (which we do say) instead of "on the weekend" (which we don't). 

It views me as a younger person than (alas) I am, and so is carefully and at length teaching me to tell people about my roommates. (Am I right that a roommate in America isn't actually a roommate but a housemate? Here, a roommate would share your bedroom.) I have had to compose many sentences about my surfing and hiking and jogging habits (surfen, wandern (I did know this) and joggen) so that I can chat to people about my energetic weekends. I can also converse about my job interview, which somewhat unbelievably seems to be "das Jobinterview". So far it has spent no time telling me about gardening, tidying the house or quilting. Or indeed blogging. I wonder if that's "bloggen". 

Still, I'm quite enjoying it and it's probably reinforcing what I already knew, so that can't be bad. Once our fairly imminent American visitors have been and gone, I might add Spanish to the list. My Spanish is extremely rudimentary, so it would be interesting to see if Duolingo can make it less so. 

I have a friend who does a different language each day of the week! I think they're Spanish, Portugese, French, German, Italian, Welsh and Scottish Gaelic. Not sure that my brain could cope with that.