A concert, a scarf, and a flag

Photo from http://www.rsno.org.uk

On Saturday Toad and I went to listen to this concert by the Royal Scottish Symphony Orchestra (RSNO) at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. It was fantastic, all of it. When I was a student at Dundee and went to concerts in the Caird Hall the orchestra was the humble SNO.

Caird Hall, Dundee
photo from Wikipedia, Creative Commons

Beforehand we had been to BurgerKing and had Aberdeen Angus burgers. Anyone who thinks burgers are junk food hasn't had an Aberdeen Angus one. The banana and strawberry smoothie was also very good. We got one to share but I drank nearly all of it because Toad said it made his forehead cold and he didn't want to get a cold-headache before the concert. Fine by me 😉

After the concert we made our way to the station for the train home. While we were waiting a couple passed us and I thought I recognised the tartan of the scarf the man was wearing. It wasn't until I noticed an abandoned Scottish flag on a bench and the man commented on it as I picked it up that I felt able to ask him about the scarf. It was indeed the Ancient Green Douglas tartan that I had guessed it was. I guessed right because that is the tartan I chose for my dem dancing sash many years ago–blue and green together and nothing riotous. You can't really see it in this blurry old photo from 2002 in Oxford Town Hall (I'm at the 'front') but you can see how we ruched the sashes over our right shoulders and, from a couple of the others, how they hung down behind. A token gesture to the old blanket plaids that kept people warm.

Sadly my sash, being wool, got rather moth-eaten so it got recycled. I still have the thistle pin that pinned it in place though. Needs a lick of silver polish!

A visit to Aberdeen

On Friday Toadlet and I travelled to Aberdeen University Undergraduate Open Day. There being a direct train all the way from Glasgow made it an easy journey. We had time after getting to Glasgow to go to a cafe for coffee and cake and for Toadlet to get on with a school assignment on recession in the Eurozone after the banking crash in 2008. She was asking me some questions about it which I was attempting to answer when a Canadian at the next table leant in with his somewhat rambling but interesting version of the story. We listened politely. Then Toadlet finished her essay. I asked her if she needed to make a fair copy to hand in but she said no. Would that I had ever been able to write a school essay so easily! I think schoolkids today are given more rigid guidelines about what is wanted in their essays than we ever were though.

I finished my cake (eight out of ten); Toadlet finished her croissant (7/10); we moved on and caught our train.

Arrived at Aberdeen we bought Subway butties and ate them sitting on a bench in Union Square. That is, I ate mine, hiding it in its paper wrapping from dive-bombing gulls between each bite, and Toadlet ate half of hers and then had it swiped out of her hand. I'd better not write down what she called the gull! 

I had booked us into a hotel on the outskirts of the city so we caught a bus and walked the last bit. No pavements. Clearly 'normal' visitors don't arrive at that hotel by foot. Just as well we live a bit off-road anyway and are used to rough ground and pathless environments. Our room was comfortable and the food at dinner time was fine.

At breakfast next morning the helpful and chatty waiter commented that he liked Toadlet's Gryffindor sweatshirt and showed us the Death-Eater tattoo on his forearm–clearly another Hogwarts fan. When he left to serve others I said: "He's friendly". 

"For a Death-Eater", said she. The waiter thought it was hilarious when I told him and said: "I've been called worse!"

We ordered a taxi to take us to the university campus and spent an interesting day finding out about the courses Toadlet wants to do, accommodation and other studenty things. I think she found the old buildings sufficiently Hogwartian to be acceptable. Click on the pics to enlarge them.

The new Sir Duncan Rice Library has its own awesomeness.

The Sir Duncan Rice Library,
University of Aberdeen

Looking up through seven storeys in the library

On our train journey home we sat with two young men, also teenagers I reckon. Perhaps they'd been to the open day as well. I always book seats in trains' Quiet Coaches so we were all irritated by a young woman's long, loud, wittering phone call. Eventually, after encouragement from the young ones who were all irritated by the constant blether, ("Do it!") I spoke to the young woman, reminding her that it was the quiet coach and that people booked seats on it so that they didn't have to listen to other people's phone calls. She said, "I'm talking to my nan", as if its being her nan made a difference. I said, "The rest of the train is at your disposal for talking to your nan so please take your phone to another carriage." She said she couldn't do that (I've no idea why) but she did end the phone call very shortly afterwards. The coach then settled into the low murmur of normal conversation between passengers and the soft snoring of a child who had been taking part in a figure-skating competition and had flaked out.

Autumn evening welly wander

Last few flowers of Perforate St.John's-wort and some pink Escallonia. Midge galls on Meadowsweet leaves and seed heads of Meadowsweet also. It has survived deer depradations this year, thanks to the presence of sheep for much of the summer, so I hope it spreads. Sedum telephium has also managed to flower in its deer-proof cage. I'll have to make a bigger one for next year. One of the front bank azaleas has put out an autumn flower or two.

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Family gathering for mum's birthday

My mum and her five children together for her 88th birthday. Note to self: put satchel down for photo shoots. I've forgotten why I was carrying my sister's cardigan.

<< This pic shows my niece-in-law with her baby, my new great-niece, my eldest daughter, my sister, Mum, and my eldest niece. Below are my eldest nephew, Mum, eldest brother, uncle (mum's brother; my dad was an only child).

Mum has five kids, fourteen grandkids and, so far, five great-grandkids, with two more due this month.

I have two grandchildren, bro holding onto mum on the bank is about to become a grandad, next bro has three grankids (one of whom is just visible in the background; she didn't want to be photographed), and one due soon.

Because of my broken arm, DerbyshireDaughter and I travelled by train and bus from her house in Derbyshire (on the Manchester side of the Dark Peak) via Preston, to the meetup on the eastern edge of the Lancashire Fylde.

Lopping a tree or two

old cypress up top

Our friends from two fields away came with chain saws and anti-midge spray yesterday and chopped into logs most of the collapsed part of the old cypress up at the top of the garden, the one that was smothering everything in its vicinity. In the first photo above, beyond the wood pile, you can see the main trunk of the birch tree. Before the collapse of the cypress that was completely hidden, even on its further away side. The collapse of half the cypress pulled its still standing trunks more upright and away from the birch. We left some of the cut trunks as a counterweight. Whether it'll be sufficient, time will tell. Meanwhile, the root rot at the base of the cypress blooms on. (Can one talk of blooming fungi?)

We used the broken old step-ladder that was leaning against the old rowan (scorched trunk at left of first photo) when we moved here, plus another random metal pole that we found, to prop up the wood pile. One day I'll do a post about Boggy Brae garden metal finds!

Old rowan, with its new bit, decorated with a beard
of cypress roots. Like rhododendron ponticum, this
cypress sent roots down from ground-touching branches.

The lopping opened up the view a bit

While the chain saw was out, BJ-of-2-fields-away (definitely not BoJo!) lopped some of the overgrown sallow that's up top as well and some of the top heavy and leaning towards the house prunus tree on the front bank. I've a bit of tidying up to do and a few roaring bonfires of green, terpene-rich smaller cypress branches to enjoy.

Sallow, left, to be added to the as yet not very dead dead-hedge that can be seen top left of the photo and, below, some branches of the overgrown front bank prunus tree to be tidied up.

There is a lovely fresh piney smell up here!

The original deal was that our friends would take half the wood but since we made that deal they've found another source of free wood (free but for the work, I mean) nearer to them so they didn't need it this year. When they do need some more wood they can come and hack away at the fallen wild cherry. The upper of the two cherry trunks shown below is still alive but the lower one is, as one might say in yoof speak, well dead. And there is a lot of dead wood above it too, still propped up for the best drying effect by the old cherry tree's offspring.

dead cherry wood

The back terrace is staying un-mown for now

Having slain one of the ponticum dragons that was blocking my view to the pond (I say slain but it'll grow again; I'm going to try and keep it small), I was very excited to find three Northern Marsh Orchids growing on the back terrace! I'm so glad I only thought about mowing there this week!

There are now five of these dotted about, all self-sown. I did try to grow some from seed but failed so I'm pleased these have turned up voluntarily.

The single Southern Marsh Orchid is coming along too but it takes longer to colour its flower.

Southern Marsh Orchid

I just learned from Fuchsias in the City (@Fuchsiarius) that my pale fuchsia is probably Fuchsia magellanica 'Alba'. Nice to know its name at last. I had thought it was 'Hawkshead' but Fuchsiarius says that variety should have a pure white corolla. You can see some pink in this one.

So, dragonly, orchidly, and fuchsialy a satisfying day, not to mention a kind friend digging out some orange tights for me to wear with a dress I was thinking of wearing to my mum's 88th birthday lunch in a few weeks' time.

perfect match!

Elder

The Boggy Brae's self-seeded elder tree is nearly flowering. It grows in the shade of a rowan so its flowering is  behind that of its parent tree in the nearby copse.

copse elder

The lower branches of BB-elder have bowed down to the ground to get more light but some others are stretching up high into the rowan. Last autumn, when the rowan had lost all its leaves, the elder leaves were a bright shot of green. I enjoyed that.

Rhododendron Up Top

If you squinted and strained your neck the newly flowering rhododendron up at the top of the garden was just visible between some sallow branches trunks which were only not lying on the ground under their own top-heaviness because a couple of birch trees were propping them up.

sallow leaning on birch

This morning I decided to cut them down so that I'd have a clear view to UpTop Rhodo from the back door. They were even heavier than I expected. I felled all four but there are still three to cut up into more manageably sized pieces. That's for another day.

Elsewhere in the garden white flowers apart from pignut are showing up brightly. Clockwise from top left: a white foxglove, white clover, a white bell-flower than came from I know not where but which is very welcome, and Libertia grandiflora, another welcome self-introduced plant. Three years ago it had three flowering shoots, last year six, and this year sixteen. I hope it spreads.


Another pic of UpTop's flowers and the view east from it: