A day trip to Edinburgh

On Thursday this week I got the train to Edinburgh to meet DivingDaughter for lunch in the National Library of Scotland (good butties) and some granny friends for tea at the National Gallery (good scones). On the train over I finished the book that one of my gran friends had lent me quite some time ago: Hellfire and Herring by Christopher Rush. Though great on social history about the fisher folk of St.Monan's in Fife, it's quite a densely written book and so short bursts of reading it were usually enough. There were some descriptive gems like these:

July was a blaze of blood red poppies

heavy with the smell of elderflower

and tall with nettles and willowherb,

waving at us from the dry ditches

and the kirkyard burn

where the loosestrife ran free.

August threaded our noons with dragonflies

and stroked our faces with thistle seeds.

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DivingDaughter had good news about a new job she has acquired after some self-financed extra training in software development. She's off on a trip to Nova Scotia to visit a friend there before the new job starts.

DD took me up steep stepped wynds I'd never walked along when I lived in Edinburgh, mainly because when I did live there I had young kids and my trips from five miles out from the city centre were normally by bicycle to visit a shop or two on a Saturday, when their dad was available to watch them, and home again without too many diversions. Other times I'd be taking the kids on the bus to the house of a friend whose kids were the same age, and we'd often go for a walk to Holyrood Park. Exploring the city along steep stepped narrow wynds were not really a practical option even if I had ever thought of it back then!

We stepped into St Giles Cathedral for a quick squint. I hadn't been in there since I was a student and had time between trains. The ceiling of the nave looked as if it had been recently painted. There was scaffolding in parts where, we presumed, more repair and restoration work was being done. It struck me as a 'heavy' and somewhat oppressive building, lacking the light lofty spaciousness of some similar and much older churches. 

Then it was down through Princes Street Gardens, the slopes of which are carpeted with crocuses.

We sat with the spring sunshine on our faces for a little while before DD went her way

and I joined my friends in the National Gallery cafe.

After a chatty meetup and a filling tea (I particularly liked the smoked salmon on scones idea), three of us went for a wander around the gallery looking at paintings.

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One of my favourite Scottish paintings is this one by Sir Francis Grant. 'Daisy' made us think of Jo March in Little Women when she only had one decent glove to wear to a party so carried the spoiled one in her hand. She also reminded us of the Scottish ballad The Road and the Miles to Dundee, which you can listen to via the link.

Baking before breakfast

Although I loved spending yesterday afternoon in Inveraray with my pal (we even managed, without prior consultation between our respective Argyll peninsulas–or 'pelinsunnas' as Toadlet used to say–to be colour coordinated), this morning I felt in need of an energy boost so I set to on an apple streusel cake that I've been meaning to make for a few days.

My pal and me

The recipe said to use two large apples. I found one and a half Granny Smiths was plenty. If this cake is as good as I'm expecting it to be, I might try using just one Bramley next time. Yes, I have my own peculiar way of coring apples ;)



The cake rose well–good sign. The plan is to fuel some scything of rushes as the day progresses. The sun is peeping through clouds every now and then so I'm off out to do the first stint.

Later: Yep, that worked!

Thimbly and toady mycology on my birthday

In search of a birthday present for me, Toad and Toadlet found themselves in the haberdashery part of a department store. Toadlet was intrigued by the word. What could it mean?

They found out and also found me some "heavy duty" fabric scissors. Fiskars have added some extra leverage to scissors, it seems, doubling their cutting power–great for cutting through several layers of fabric. I shall enjoy using them.

Scissors also turned up on one of my birthday cards. My friends know me well!

The mycological theme (see wrapping paper above) repeated itself in a thimble

and in a froggy, or could it be a toady, ornament?

Roses too:

What with newsy letters, cards and greetings from friends and family far and wide, I had a most enjoyable day. Thank you all.

Wayside flowers on the road to Lochgilphead

I was delighted to see stands of Purple Loosestrife on my way to and from Lochgilphead today as they don't commonly grow near the Boggy Brae.

The A83 is a tricky road to pull over on so I'd missed a few stands of the flowers before I saw a dirt track turn off into the forest. Just as well I was in Rab the Rattler (alias "the truck") which is happy on squishy mud. Someone with a posh car wouldn't have opened this gate and turned around in here: 

But I did

A tiny part of Lochgilphead in a back lane

In the same back lane a lovely red honeysuckle

Travelling home again I had a better idea of the best places to stop so that I could get a picture of the swathes of wild angelica with purple loosestrife mixed in

Lots of marshy areas like this just off the road

absolutely full of wild angelica

Some purple loosestrife with meadowsweet

and here with more, very tall angelica

Finally a lovely tall ash tree near where I stopped.

You can just see the corner of the rattletrap bottom right.

And between travelling to and from Lochgilphead I had lunch with a friend. As the crow flies we do not live far apart, but as the roads go, following the winding coasts of sea lochs, it's a fair distance. A lovley journey between mountains and alongside beautiful lochs though. A happy day.

We are good at fallen trees

While we were at archery practice a friend came and sliced up our fallen eucalyptus for us. Thank you, BJ! I foresee some log-splitting days ahead.

We decided to leave some of the trunk as a bench. we shoved an old log underneath to support it but with the weight of the tree taken off it was raised rather than falling lower. It would seem that some of the roots are still effective guy ropes.

Garden bench work in progress

Tree roots as guy ropes for a trunk bench and a place for my next compost heap.

This is an apple tree. We don't know when it fell over because it has been like this since we moved here eight years ago. It's still alive and still producing small, wormy apples which the local jays eat up.

There is a little garden seat  here too :)

January buds on the apple tree

The fallen bird cherry below. I shall watch what happens with this during the spring. There are other plants growing on it: holly, honeysuckle, cowberry, ivy, foxgloves. Bit by bit I'll cut off the small branches for firewood. I wonder if the beautiful sulphur polypore fungus will show itself this year?

We brought one slice of trunk inside and will count the rings.

November News

I've been struggling to write my November newsletter because the month contained some episodes which take time to come to terms with.

It started sadly with news of the sudden death of my friend Carol in France. She was in the habit of hiking alone in the hills of the Haute Savoie region and must have lost her footing in a tricky place. It is thought that the fall killed her instantly. I hope so because the worst of the ten days when she was missing and being searched for was the worry that she was injured and unable to make contact with anyone for help. Her family will remember her with love and pride. RIP, Carol.

November ended sadly too with the police helicopter crash onto the roof of a busy pub in Glasgow. After the initial shock of the news and the feelings of sorrow and anxiety for anyone involved, and their nearest and dearest, what stunned me most about this news was that the band that was playing in the pub at the time apparently just thought that a speaker had blown when they heard the crash. My immediate thought on reading that in a news report was to wonder just how incredibly loud the music must have been to disguise the noise of such a crash. Such noise is out of my ken. I was shocked.
Then I felt pride in humanity as I read of people's efforts to help, and I got the feeling from the news reports that a great sense of community pervaded Glasgow that weekend. We hear so much about the horribleness of our species that it is heartening to hear, and to feel, something positive out of tragic events.

Between these, my Kintyre friend fell very ill with bronchitis and the flu virus the day after I had met her for lunch at Inverary. She had mentioned a bit of a lurgy that day but was not really ill until the following day when it hit her with a hard wham. As I write, six days later, she is still very poorly. I can only hope the meds kick in effectively very soon and she is back to being her bright self before very much longer.

That same week our archery friend, Mossypocket, tripped over a dislodged paving stone in Dumbarton and broke his nose in the fall as well as spraining both wrists. Healing vibes to you too, Mossy! And thank you again for fixing our mega-crack in the outhouse ceiling with new plasterboard and plaster, and for replacing the plasterboard that had to be removed from the stairwell (for plumbing work to be done) during our first week here seven and a half years ago. I had covered the hole with a quilt and forgotten all about it until there was talk of plasterboard recently! I thought I had taken a photo of the hole but I seem to have lost it. Here is one from before the repair and one from after. I suppose we'll get around to repainting sometime. Don't hold your breath though.

With quilt

without quilt

Between times the natural world around me has provided my best entertainment as usual. this morning's sunrise did not look too hopeful at eight o'clock but it improved and then, when the rain came, I enjoyed the dispersed sideways light through the rain. Since then the sun has shone, it has rained and rainbowed, sprinkled the hills with snow and practised shades of grey. It is December after all.

Sunlight appearing further round to the south than south-east now

A rainy sunlight to the north-east across the loch

Rainlight

Photographs from my garden potterings:

Winter yarrow heads

 Compost heap fungi

Ash log fungi

Tiny winter rushes