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Botanical gardens

My youngest son's future mother-in-law and I had a very enjoyable wander around the Botanics in Edinburgh on Thursday.  The weather was glorious.  We walked through some of the gardens, and then went and had lunch on the cafe terrace, outside Inverleith House.  There was some wedding stuff to chat about.

We entered the gardens by the east gate,
and headed for one of my favourite parts of the gardens, the Scottish Heath Garden.  It's wild, representing the Scottish Highlands, and not frequented much - hence the attraction for me.  A 'tumbledown' croft, constructed a long time ago now, has really been taken over by nettles and other wild plants. There is a little pond there too, which a couple of mallards were enjoying.
Colour is beginning to return to the gardens, after the browns of winter.  
We enjoyed lovely hot sunshine as we meandered past the different areas of the gardens.   
These beautiful anemones were my favourite find of the day.  I've got the grand total of two soft  blue ones out in my garden.  They were everywhere in the Botanics!
After we parted company, I walked on through Inverleith Park.  I was meeting my granddaughter from school, and the park's allotment site was en route.  It's been there since 1942.  There's a pretty impressive selection of huts, which I am rather envious of.  I had a wonderful hut on my allotment, on the other side of the city, but some lesser specimens of the human race burnt it down one January night, about ten years ago.  Broke my heart.

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