Mother's Day gifts

I am a lucky woman.

Little people

I always feel that character is fairly obvious from early on - though I'm just really going on how I felt I was as a child and how my children were.

I wonder if this is true of the grandchildren.

The other day Granddaughter plodded purposefully out of the sitting room and when I pursued her, she was half-way up the stairs. After a very short time she reappeared, having gone into the bedroom where Daughter 2 normally sleeps when she comes to stay. Daughter 2's slippers were firmly clutched in Granddaughter's hands. She likes putting on other people's shoes and the slippers have been on her feet before.

I helped her downstairs (her arms were rather full) and she put on the slippers. Then she decisively marched back into the sitting room, sat down on one of the little chairs and began to scribble in a colouring book. (And yes, she's got another dunt on her forehead - she seems to be a bit accident prone at the moment.)

So far, she seems quite an organised little person.

Grandson isn't much of an artist yet but he likes drawing numbers, occasional letters and - can you guess what this is? - traffic lights. These are quite complicated ones, with green arrows to left and right - they probably don't show up in this small picture on my blog, but they're there all right.

Our way here from his house features a lot of traffic lights and also, at this time of year, crocuses on The Meadows - a park we drive though. "Look," I say, "at the pretty flowers. They're called crocuses."

He glances briefly at them. "Mmm," he says. "Why do those traffic lights have a big green arrow and the traffic lights back there just have a little one?"

Umm.... .

Gratifyingly, Granddaughter looks out of the car window and says, "Flowers!" in a tone of amazed delight.

Old and new

Fourteen years ago, we got new sofas and rug for the sitting room. The rug was from Ikea and was very cheap but we decided that it would do for the moment. But recently it was getting rather scruffy so we got a new one, which was delivered on Saturday. We chose it to tone in with the covers of the sofas, which are a navyish blue. The sitting room has French windows which face south and we were aware that the sofas had faded slightly - not really enough to warrant new furniture, and anyway, they have loose covers which could be replaced, if they were bad enough and if we could be bothered.

So we put the rug down and it was fine. It's blue, not lilac as it looks in the picture and it goes quite well with the sofa covers.

But then I decided that we should... Mr Life should... go into the attic and retrieve the very heavy cardboard box which has been there for fourteen years because it came free with the suite and contains a spare, cream, set of covers. For some years I've vaguely wondered what it would look like if we put them on instead.

They were very crumpled and not easy to iron, being somewhat unwieldy and not a regular shape, but I did my best. Mr L removed the navy covers (frankly, they were very overdue for a wash, though they looked ok because they were dark) and replaced them with the cream ones. This took him some considerable time and he's possibly not going to be very keen to do this again in the particularly near future.

It is, as my mother would have said, a wee change.

It's not at all practical as a colour, is it? I'm not sure that it's a permanent look, though we don't use this room all the time so it won't be sat on every day. It's where the grandchildren mainly play, however!

The new rug no longer matches it, of course, but the Ikea cushion goes rather well so that's all right... . I need to do some more ironing of the covers by lying on the floor and doing the best I can without taking them off.

I still haven't actually washed the navy covers, since I need a good drying day (and the biggest bits will have to go to the laundrette because they won't fit in the machine).

Talking of things that have been going a long time and which then change, I've realised that my blog has passed its ninth birthday (gosh, how did that happen and why have I not achieved much in the past nine years?). Since I no longer have students who might (though almost undoubtedly never did) stumble on it, I've decided that it's about time to stop being Isabelle (which is my middle name) and declare myself by my first name, which is Pam. I've never really liked the name Pamela but it was a very popular Fifties choice. Pam is marginally better but both are rather jolly-hockey-sticks. Anyway, there we are. Hello.

Now I must see if I can change the name on my profile.

Nearly new

Today was Granddaughter's birthday. She's 2. Daughter 1 made her a panda cake. Granddaughter likes pandas, though not as much as she likes cake.

She appreciated the artistry...

... but made sure that she got some cake stuffed in her mouth as soon as possible, in case someone thought better of this unusual carbohydrate largesse.

Today, her actual birthday, we went to Prestonfield House for afternoon tea in a private room. The house, now a hotel, was built in 1687 and various important people have visited it over the centuries, such as David Hume, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Johnson, Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher, Sean Connery (is he important?), Catherine Zeta Jones (is she?) and Oliver Reed (well, again...). The decor is still very much as it was originally and the house is full of antiques.

It was a generous tea, not entirely without calories.

Granddaughter may be disappointed at the meals she's provided with tomorrow.

You can see our main city hill outside the window, basking in the balmy Edinburgh sunshine. Well, actually it was blowing a gale and intermittently raining but we'll ignore that.

Doing things

The weeks flash by and somehow I never have enough time. The garden needs attention now that spring is more or less here - I cut some things back today but there's still a lot of tidying up to be done. I should practise the piano more. And I want to get on with my quilt. And of course there are friends to meet up with, grandchildren to play with, books to read, walks to take, blogging to do... . I have a huge backlog of things I want to do, from when I was working and never had any time at all.

Sometimes the grandchildren play together, or at least alongside each other, as above.

And sometimes they play separately, as below. Children are so busy as well.

We always miss Daughter 2 so much after she goes back to London. Still, as I said, it's kind of spring. These little daffodils smell heavenly.

And I've sewn the tumblers together and cut out bits of fabric for the borders. Now to attach them. I hope I haven't made them more complicated than I can cope with. Wish me luck.

Very strange indeed...

I have a question for you: what connects the first two pictures below...

with the picture above? 

Well, the answer is that they're all of the same room. 

Today I had the surreal experience of being invited to see the changes that the people who bought my parents' house have made. Above, you can see my parents' dining room, as it was. The new people have changed it into their kitchen, put a line of units where the fireplace was and blocked off the window, which is currently a wall with "Congratulations Daddy" adorning it. To the right, where you can't see it, they've knocked through a little passageway into the butler's pantry, and the wall between the butler's pantry and the kitchen, and made the butler's pantry's window into a glass door to light their kitchen. 

It was all very very odd indeed. It was my parents' house and yet it wasn't. 

The pictures immediately below show the sitting room as it was...

and above, as it is now. I thought the mantelpiece was rather nice before, but there we are. Tastes vary.

The new owners were happy for me to take some photos to show the family, but I didn't like to do this in any great detail, so they're not really effective as before and after photos. And the walls in the photo above are actually quite a dark mushroom colour, though they look green here (shades of the blue and black dress making headlines a few days ago).

I feel... quite stressed and a bit disorientated but ... it was very kind of the young lady to invite me. And the lovely thing is that they've given their little girl the middle name of May, which is my mum's name, because they thought that my mum was such a sweet old lady. (They might not have, I realise, if her name had been something horrible. But still. I wish I could tell Mum!)

The British Mother's Day is coming in a couple of weeks and the shops are making the most of this marketing opportunity. It's quite hard when you no longer have a mother and you keep being reminded of this fact. But of course this must be a very common experience.

Ah well. Such is life.

The week

On Sunday, Grandson played with his road signs and cars, using the entire sitting room carpet for this purpose, as usual.

On Tuesday I went to my piano lesson. This is the view from the bus stop - Edinburgh Castle behind a graveyard and trees.

On Thursday the grandchildren came again. Isn't Granddaughter getting girl-like rather than baby-like?

She and Grandpa enjoyed "Ivor the Engine".

Grandson smiled nicely for the camera but by the time I actually took the picture, he was yearning to get back to his car layout.

It's spring. I do like being able to pick a little vaseful from the garden.

And later on Thursday, Daughter 2 came home for a long weekend, which always improves any week. I don't know why Mr L looks so red. He isn't really.

On Thursday evening the three of us watched "What We Did On Our Holiday" - a really enjoyable film, we thought. It was set mainly in the Highlands of Scotland, which are so lovely (and in another life I would live there among the hills and empty beaches) and stars David Tennant (who's always good), Rosamund Pike (ditto, also very beautiful) and Billy Connolly (of whom I'm not a huge fan but actually he was rather effective) - and some children, who were excellent. The film is funny but also surprising - it's slightly oh no! in the middle but fine in the end. I've just read a review which calls it "supremely modest", which I think is a good description. It made me smile a lot and it wouldn't really happen but then again... it just might.

And that was the week so far.

Walking

It's been a busy week, though with quite what, I can't remember. But on Thursday we took the grandchildren for a walk along the shore.

Grandson rode his balance bike.

Or that was the idea. After a while, he decided to walk along the wall instead. We've all been there: carrying the bike that the child was supposed to be riding. Still, he enjoyed himself, which was the main point.

Then on Saturday we went to Earlston in the Borders with the walking group. It was another glorious day of sunshine.

 The route was quite hilly in parts - oh, how good for the thighs.

We came to a lightly wooded area which was carpeted with snowdrops.

 It did the soul good to look at them.

The sun kept shining as we walked on.

We passed a scruffy old mill which had a stone engraved "Rhymers Mill 1772".

Then we all went and had coffee in Rhymers Tower Coffee Shop in the village. Behind it is the ruined Rhymers Tower, where Thomas the Rhymer, a 13th century bard, lived. Many of his rhymes were prophetic and some (apparently) came true. He got his gifts from the beautiful young Queen of the Fairies, who came riding past and persuaded him to go off with her for seven years. He came back wearing green and carrying a special harp.

Or so the story goes.

We had a lovely day, anyway. Chatting makes the miles zip by.

Boyhood

The boy adores his cars, traffic signs and road layouts. He plays with them for hours. Our son also liked toy cars a lot (I think he still likes cars, but he now has a full-sized one of his own) but his road mat was the one thing he didn't play with much.

Last night we watched the film "Boyhood". I'm not much of a one for films - they involve sitting still for longer than I usually feel like doing and they're often rather harrowing - but I found this one compelling. If you haven't watched it, I recommend it. In my old age I can't cope - or am perhaps unwilling to cope - with books or films involving much sadness or violence. However this, while not being a jolly romp, doesn't dwell long on the sad or frightening sides of life, though difficult things to appear from time to time, as in all our lives.

I thought the most fascinating part of it was just seeing the boy actor and his sister transform from 8 to 18, almost like a time-lapse film of a flower opening. The story, though interesting enough, was secondary as far as I was concerned. I can remember sitting with my little boy on my knee and finding it very hard to imagine that he would grow up to be a big man. But he did.

And Grandson will too, though this is equally hard to imagine. I hope life is kind to him.

One of the most touching moments of the film for me was when the mother is about to see her son, her younger child, off to university, and she wails something like, "I thought there would be more!" Just shortly beforehand, she'd been rejoicing in her imminent freedom to do things for herself at last; and yet, and yet... .

It must have been a huge risk to make this film. What if the actor playing a major character had died or simply been unwilling to continue? I suppose the story would have had to accommodate this. But what if the child actors hadn't been good enough to carry off the scenes of their older lives? Fortunately, they were. I haven't seen any other of the Oscar-nominated films but I hope that "Boyhood" wins, for sheer originality and courage apart from anything else.