Vera Macdonald

Had a great time with smooth flights and reasonable weather. Saw miles and miles of excellent roads with a running commentary from Mary to keep me in the know. My favourite things were stones so I took some home from this beach – and I don’t want any of you eco warriors to give me a hard time – I got through customs, so it’s ok!

Didn’t see otters, whales or puffins, but did see a seal just outside Lerwick but it’s so far away it’s the bump on top of the furthest rock!

Wish I had been allowed to take a photo at the airport as the Massey Ferguson tractor drove out to pull the plane to its parking spot!

You can use a boat as a garden too

Had a swimming lesson yesterday and I did really well – either that or the instructor is really kind! Even got my face wet, so I might re-join the gym and try to swim regularly. But only if the pool’s a bit warmer, my teeth were chattering when I wasn’t actually moving about. Still it might be good preparation for Shetland – going there on Tuesday and at the moment it’s snow and ice, so not what I was hoping for. There should be some good wildlife photos to come soon!

Had a great day out at the Scotland Street School Museum, a beautiful building designed by Charles Rennie Macintosh, then on to the Tramway, a theatre complex with a Hidden Garden, full of art & design features.

A fine example of Macintosh design

garden art

This installation lights up when you stand under it, according to how much metal you have on your body. It also ‘talks’ to you while you’re there and stops when you leave. How clever is that?

Arty divider, hiding the working area

This is a simple, rough wood panel which looks great and is really functional, dividing the work area from the main garden. And nice to see somewhere which still has an honesty box for buying plants.

Planes are flying, boats are sailing and the folks I know who were stranded are safely home again. I’m home after visiting the rellies and they’re all well, so it’s good to be back to ‘normal’

Mary’s still stuck here and is now going by train and boat, the other two are still stuck in Milan and looking at their options, it’s like the end of the world as we know it. Soon there will be no bananas or anything else we ship here from far away. It’ll be interesting to see just how much we do depend on importing by air. Ah well, all right for me to say, brought up on mince and tatties!

As you’re all well informed, you’ll know about the volcanic ash cloud currently over us which has closed all airports, for the second day now, and no clear sign of when planes will fly again. My neice and nephew are stranded in Milan (not a bad place to be stranded) while poor Mary (she from Shetland) is stuck here in Edinburgh. However, there is always a silver lining, she’s had an extra day’s shopping and we went to the cinema to see Tilda Swinton in ‘I am love’, a beautifully made Italian film getting good reviews from the ‘arty’ critics.

I’m off tomorrow to do a retreat in England for 10 days, hoping for some sunshine, so no more news until I get back – and if this weather doesn’t improve I might not come back!

Well, no wonder! It’s the last day of March and we have more snow again. We’ve had enough, although Auntie Bess tells me we had snow on the same date last year, but then we hadn’t had it bad for 3 months continuously last year. Roll on April.

Well I will as soon as I get used to these new intermediate varifocals -they’re meant to be for reading at the bottom and computer at the top but they merge seamlessly between the two. Anyway there’s some hi-tech reason why they cost a fortune. The optician – or optometrist he’s now called – found these in the back of a cupboard. How happy must he have been to find someone to buy pink and green specs – and yet how happy am I to find specs in my favourite colours!

Rhubarb specs

I’m just back from visiting the golden oldies and they’re all well and in good form. I had a noisy train journey back as it was 6pm on Saturday after the football. A well-oiled group of lads sat near me and sang their hearts out from Dundee to Kirkcaldy (which was about as long as I could have stood it). But I did hear a couple of wise cracks:
1. Is that Johnny Cash? Naw, I’m his brother Nae Cash (it’s for Scots speakers this one)
2. Gonna sing that Oasis soup song? Ok,(singing) ‘you gotta roll with it’ – and you gotta think about that one, don’t you?