Sunny

It's been lovely weather here. It was sunny when we had coffee in John Lewis yesterday.

It was still sunny as we drove up to have lunch with Son today.

The sun shone on Gloagburn Farm as we ate.

We then climbed Moncreiffe Hill, where there are Pictish hill forts. This isn't one. It's just some posts which have been placed at the foot of the hill to give one a Pictish feeling as one reads the information boards.

Son posed Pictishly, though didn't actually cover himself with paint, which miight have been more authentic (or might not).

This, apparently, is the site of a Pictish hill fort from the Late Iron Age or Early Mediaeval period. You get views in all directions so could see the enemy approaching, though we weren't quite sure what you'd do about it. There didn't seem anywhere much to hide.

But everything looked very peaceful today.

I've now sewn my tumblers together in rows and - since taking the picture - have joined three rows together. There was a tiny bit of unpicking involved, but not too much. I know it's all very simple but it's quite satisfying. Maybe I'll try something more complicated next time (or maybe I won't).

Wonderfulness

The other grandparents are in Edinburgh for the weekend and we all met at Daughter 1's for lunch. Grandson really LOVES his traffic layouts and yes, those are bows in his hair. They belong to Granddaughter and he just fancied wearing them for a bit. And why not?

Granddaughter has a cold (again) and is teething - hence the red cheeks - but she was very jolly as usual. What a wonderful age nearly-2 is. (Most of the time.)

Snowdrops in the garden.

And crocuses. We're coming to get you, Spring!

And the new Anne Tyler is out, yippee. She's my favourite novelist; I love her beautifully-structured stories of slightly odd people (aren't we all?) and the words in which she describes the twists and turns of their lives. I read somewhere that this is to be her last novel, which is a sad thought, but I suppose she deserves a bit of retirement like the rest of us. I'm very much looking forward to reading it. Currently I'm reading "At Home" by Bill Bryson, which is about houses (and lots else) and is really interesting. I'm going to have to read it again, though. It's too nice an edition to read in the bath (lots of pictures) so I've been consuming it in bits, which means that I lose the thread somewhat. In the bath (and therefore also in bed) I've been rereading Thurber's letters - he was a fascinating chap, though again slightly odd  - and for the book group, Peter May's "Entry Island", which seemed to me somewhat pifflish. Some piffle is fine, if it doesn't aspire to being anything else but well-written fluff, but this combined some seriousness with (I thought) a ridiculous plot. The sense of place came across well (Skye and islands off Canada) but an ancestor's diary entries were remembered word-for-word from his childhood by the main character - improbable. In one of these, a girl during the Highland Clearances brought a "quiche" for her chap, who was in hiding. Granted, I wasn't in Skye in the mid-nineteenth century but I seriously doubt if actual quiches, by that name, featured largely in the diet. And there were A LOT of what a lecturer of mine, who couldn't pronounce his "r"s, used to call crude coincidences (cccchhhhude coincidences) - a phrase which has stayed with me. He was talking about the novels of E M Forster, which are also packed with such coincidences. I haven't been able to reread Forster since he pointed this out in 1971. I don't think I've missed much but he was better than Peter May, I feel.

Most of my book group liked "Entry Island" a lot, though, so it's all a matter of opinion.

I'm sitting here listening to the sixth movement of Brahms' Requiem on Cyberbass as I write, in the attempt to get it into my head because we're singing the Requiem at my Sunday choir. It's quite distracting. I should give it my full attention because it's also hard. And amazingly wonderful.

Holes

Grandson and I went to the Botanics the other day. We went into the greenhouses for the first time, which he found interesting, especially since one of them has an aquarium section. He particularly liked the little neon fish.

Then we walked round the gardens as usual and looked at the waterfalls and his favourite tree, Number 17 Tree (as he calls it, after his own house, also number 17). We fed the squirrels and the pigeons on sunflower seeds and the ducks on special duck food provided by Son. Oh, what fun it is to wander around with him and have lots of chats.

Can you see where the grass is dug up on the left? That's the work of the badgers which live in the garden and come out at night after all those pesky visitors have gone away. They've made a real mess in various areas. I didn't know about them till there was a recent article about them in the paper. There are about five setts in the gardens and badgers keep digging up the crocus bulbs and eating them. How very trying. We get badgers around here too but they've never done much damage to the garden.

The other evening I looked out of a front window and saw three foxes proceeding across the lawn towards the side of the house. Then I looked out of the back and there they were in the back garden, having presumably squeezed through the rather small cat-hole we cut in the side gate. The temptation to feed them is quite strong - it was cold and they were no doubt looking for food - but it wouldn't be sensible. I always think how strange it is that we invite certain animals into our houses and pamper them, while outside, most of wildlife just gets on with things with little assistance from anyone.

We're still missing our cats a lot. We were fine before we had them but now we've had them and lost them, there seems like a big hole in our lives. A bit like having children. Ah well. There are snowdrops and crocuses in the garden. Spring is on the way. Slowly.

Noise and nonsense

We got out the circus tent that my brother and sister-in-law gave the children.

Cushions and rugs were brought in to make cosy beds. There was a certain amount of what my father used to call...

... noise and nonsense.

The tent tilted somewhat from time to time.

Sometimes a cherub would emerge

Such fun.

Tumblers

In a bid to distract myself (and do something with the shining hour) I've been cutting out tumbler blocks to make a snuggle quilt for Daughter 2. I mainly used fabrics from my stash (oh Thimbleanna, what have you started? - it's quite a big stash) though I bought some self-coloured ones as well. Several of the patches come from leftovers from curtains I've made at various times for the house, which is quite pleasing. And I can convince myself that this renders it thrifty... if not perhaps quite making up for the material I've bought on spec just because I liked it.

I decided to have stripes of white, green, yellow and blue, Daughter 2 chose the fabrics (from the stash) and Mr L and I calculated how many blocks I needed of various types. I then had fun deciding how to arrange them.  Which is just as well, since I clearly have enough fabric for at least, oh, ten other quilts using many of these fabrics.

No doubt the actual sewing will involve less fun and more ripping-out before I get it right.

I found myself lying in bed the other night, thinking about cutting out tumblers. Still, as I say, I blame Anna. She got me into this so it's clearly not my fault.

Life going on

Thank you, bloggy friends and commenters, for your kind sympathy for the loss of our furry friend. It is actually comforting - the kind words of people who don't know you but take the trouble to type some words of consolation. Similarly, lots of Facebook friends (some of whom I know only through blogs and some of whom are my actual friends) said nice things and that helped too. As did other friends. And Daughter 2 sent us some lovely flowers. 

We're trying to get used to Cassie's absence. It's working a bit. Daughter 2 came home at the weekend and invented several games for Grandson. I think she was being a cow here and he was riding on her. I can't quite remember why she was a cow rather than a horse. She's a very good auntie.

And on Saturday they all came to us, including Son and Daughter-in-Law, and we missed Cassie (and Sirius) collectively. Sigh. Granddaughter hasn't noticed her absence yet, or at least she hasn't said anything. Grandson has, but not at length. 

We did have a Sirius conversation in the car a few weeks ago, though, as I was negotiating the one-way system round Tollcross.

Grandson: Where did Sirius go?
Me [nervously - how do you explain death to a 3 year-old?]: Well, he died.
G: But where is he now?
Me: He isn't anywhere. There isn't a Sirius any more.
G: But who has him?
Me: No one. 
G: But I want him to come back.
Me: So do I. But I'm afraid he won't.
G: [without a pause]: But I wanted you to go down Grove Street.
Me: Oh, this way is just as good.

And that seemed to be the crisis over. Phew. I think. 

The bruise has almost gone.

Yesterday Mr Life and I went for a walk in Stockbridge. Life must go on. 

But we certainly miss the furry presence round the house.

Queen Fluff

I've been putting off writing this post because I'm so very sad and writing about it in my blog seems to make it true and permanent, which of course it is. Cassie, our pretty, fluffy little companion, is no more.

Bloggy friends will remember that her twin, Sirius, developed lung cancer and faded away over the course of nearly a year. He started by coughing and, over the months, starting breathing fast. Lung cancer, said the vet, is very rare in cats and extremely rare in young cats. He was six when we had to have him put to sleep. We were very upset indeed.

So when my husband heard Cassie cough, once, a week past Thursday, we were of course worried. But we thought we were being neurotic. It couldn't happen again. Could it? Then she coughed again, once, on the Sunday. I wasn't in the room either time. We were again worried but we thought, surely not? I looked at her and wondered if she was breathing slightly faster than usual but decided that it was my imagination. She seemed absolutely fine. She was eating, drinking, jumping up on things. We wondered whether to take her to the vet, but she hated - and fought - being put in her travelling box and of course we didn't want to believe that there was anything wrong.

Then last Thursday evening, she started breathing very fast - unmistakably. We were devastated. We took her to the vet at 11 on Friday morning. He was not optimistic. We had to leave her behind to be x-rayed. A younger vet phoned at 12.15. There were growths in her lungs and ... it must be something genetic and... . We never brought her home. She was only seven.

We loved them, foolishly, as people do love their pets, knowing that we were likely to outlive them; but planning our grief for much later. Cats, and I imagine dogs too, are such physical presences in a house. Cassie and Sirius sat on us a lot. They pushed their soft furry heads into our hands, snuggled into us, purred. They were our substitute children, some consolation for our empty nest.

They are a huge loss.

I know they were only cats, and much, much worse things happen to other people. But now we've cleared away the various cat beds and the throws on the sofas and the dishes, the house seems drearily tidy. We keep shutting doors to rooms that were out of bounds to the cats and then remembering that we don't have to do so. We look through the glass panels of the door to the smaller living room as we pass, to see what she's up to. We open the outside doors carefully at night to make sure she doesn't escape. It's not that we've really forgotten, but it comes as a reminder, every time we automatically do something like that, that she's not here any more.

The cat flap has its cover on, which makes the kitchen door seem all wrong.

Get a kitten, people say. So tempting, but no. Daughter 1, Son-in-Law 1, his mother and Grandson are all a bit allergic to cats; my brother is very allergic - which is why the cats were only allowed in certain rooms and we had washable throws on the sofas. And being doting cat-owners means that you have to import house-sitters when you go away.

But mainly we can't face the idea of going through this again.

Goodbye, lovely Queen Fluff and sweet-natured Velvet Ted.  Thank you for sharing our lives and making us, for all too short a time, cat people.

What's been going on around here

I didn't realise that squirrels are fond of sunflower seeds as well as peanuts. This feeder usually has mixed seeds in it, which Mr Squirrel has never shown any interest in, but now that it's filled with sunflower seeds he sits there and stuffs himself for minutes at a time. There's a little gap at the bottom of the feeder, which makes it nice and easy for him to shovel the seeds in with both hands.

Here he is on the fence afterwards. I'm surprised that he could heave himself up on it with his tummy full of seeds. The birds were pleased to see him go.

Grandson and Granddaughter are beginning to play together, which is SO CUTE.

And I've started to cut out bits of material for my next projected quilt.

Maybe woodworking would be easier. Fabric stretches; and what I've measured ever so carefully can become not quite so perfectly right after I've cut it. Still, you don't get wood with pretty little patterns of butterflies on it. Life's not perfect.

The thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to

The bruise is still there but the egg has gone down a bit. Thank you for your sympathy for her! It doesn't seem to be bothering her much, but she's still not very well from the infection that caused her to be wobbly, the wee pet.

Goodness, this weather isn't helping the Januaryitis. Today it's cold, dark, a bit windy and wettish with the remains of some feeble snow still lying on the grass: a day for sitting inside with a book and a cat. Not that I have been, really. I've been out to lunch and am later going to choir. Keep breathing in and out and get on with it. It's the only way.

Bump

I've been struck, I think, with Januaryitis. The weather has sometimes been beautiful, as above, but at the moment is wild and stormy, though not cold. But I seem to be a bit brain-dead. It's hard, when one is getting older and things are not quite as one would wish, to face up to a new year with brimming enthusiasm. On the other hand, it could be a whole lot worse. I do realise this.

The grandbabies have been unwell and Granddaughter especially so. I went round to see her today and she fell asleep on me. After half an hour, however, Grandson arrived back loudly from nursery and woke her up, which wasn't especially successful from her point of view. She cheered up, however, and started staggering about: her balance seems to be affected by her illness, so she kept falling over. And then, though I was sitting right beside her, I managed to let her fall against the door frame and she bashed her forehead badly. It came up in a huge blue lump and Son-in-Law 1 and I, who were together, got a real fright. However, after telephone advice from Doctor Son, we calmed down, and she seems to be all right; or at least not permanently damaged.

Grandson is spending the night with us here and is lying on his back, fast asleep with his arms spread out, looking very sweet. He did enjoy his bath, earnestly pouring water from a little jug into a funnel and thence into an empty shampoo bottle and noting how many jugfuls it took to fill the bottle. And then we read "Mr Bump", with whom he sympathised after the trauma of his sister's accident.

And now I must go and battle with my very difficult (to me) piano piece. I hope it's warding off dementia, if nothing else.

Road signs

Mr Life was having a little nap. Grandson wanted to go into the room where he was peacefully communing with the cat. Naps and Grandson don't really go together. But Grandson and his cars needed to "go to Portobello", which was, in his game, where Mr L and Cassie were on the sofa. So I put up a No Entry sign. If there's anything the lad understands, it's the power of road signs.

As reinforcement, I added a Diversion sign.

He conceded the point. "Now draw a Man Digging Mud sign," he said - this is what he calls a Road Works sign. It always looks to me like a Man Putting Up Umbrella sign, so I drew this. It looks a bit like Man Poking Fire, I have to admit.

He then requested: a Man Digging Mud End sign;

a Thirty Mile An Hour Limit sign;

an End To Thirty Mile An Hour Limit sign;

a Seventy-One Mile An Hour Speed Limit sign (unusual but possible, I suppose): 

followed by the above rarely-seen road sign;

some more speed limit ending signs;

and the rather alarming Ninety Mile An Hour Speed Limit notice.

I've been writing this blog for nearly nine years, I think. In another swiftly-passing nine years, he'll be twelve and won't need his granny much any more. But for the moment - I'm his willing slave.

Makes our feet and fingers glow

Well, hello 2015. That was a quick year. My brother, sister-in-law, Mr L and I brought the New Year in with friends, which was nice. We were having a quiz and hardly noticed the old year ending, which prevented me from glooming about the past and worrying about the future. So that was good for everyone (including the readers of this blog). Then yesterday the other grandparents came for a meal with Daughter 1, Son-in-Law 1 and the babies, which was also nice, and then today my brother and his wife went back down south. So now it's just us again.

"Let's go for a walk in the Botanics while the sun's shining," I suggested. So we did. Except that by the time we got out of the car, the wind had got up and was chucking sleet into our faces. Still, we're Scottish and not discouraged by a little weather, so we marched briskly round the empty gardens.

I felt sorry for various foreigners who were cowering in the shop and the cafe. Presumably someone had told them that Edinburgh's fun at Hogmanay. And it probably is. But it's more reliably fun in the summer, in my opinion.

There wasn't a lot blooming, but these hellebores were doing their best to be cheerful.

And look! - snowdrops are coming out.

Back in our porch, cyclamen, daffodils and more hellebores reminded us again that spring is on the way. Just not quite yet.

Happy New Year to all bloggy friends. I hope it's a good one for you all.

Goodbye to all that

I haven't had much time to spend on the computer, what with lots of (very welcome) visitors, but I wish all my bloggy friends and lurkers a very happy 2015 when it arrives. Thank you to all who comment; it's lovely to feel a relationship with you. I will visit you in the next few days. And for those commenters who don't have a blog - I can't thank you by commenting on your posts, but I do thank you all the same.

Here's a heron standing very still on the Tyne in Haddington, where we went for a walk with our remaining visitors, my brother and his wife, yesterday.

Resolutions? To sort out the parental archives, which have been sitting in boxes and a cupboard ever since my mother died. Can't leave it for ever. Must grit the teeth (carefully - they're getting a bit elderly, my teeth). And to do some more quilting.

You? Going to do a marathon, write a novel, visit Australia/Britain/America, move house, get a new job, sort out your photos, learn to ballroom dance? I hope it goes well.