The treasures of Athelstaneford

I made my first visit to Athelstaneford's Book Nook yesterday. I took some books along and came away with one which I am looking forward to reading, once I have finished Donna Tartt's 'The Goldfinch'.

Every time I drive through Athelstaneford I make a mental note to visit the little building, Hepburn's Doocot, which sits behind the church, housing an exhibition about the Saltire, the Scottish flag. Having dropped off my books I went to see what goes on in the doocot!

We have misty grey days at the moment but one of my favourite line of trees was just visible in the gloaming, viewed from the back wall of the churchyard.

To enter the Hepburn Doocot you have to bend in half to get through a tiny door.

Once inside there was a little gem of an exhibition.

Press a button and a rich deep Scots voice recounts a local battle which took place in 832 AD.

The day before the battle, the story goes, there was a cross of white cloud set against a blue sky (without the trickery of aircraft vapour trails in those days) which the Picts saw as a good omen. One thing led to another (read all about it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athelstaneford) and we now have the Saltire as Scotland's flag

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In a vase on Monday - colour

The intense colours in my vase this week come from nasturtiums, sweetpeas and a single glorious zinnia! Their beauty and love of life speak for themselves and need no further words from me! Enjoy!

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By the time I have walked about four miles, my toes are screaming at me - it's the arthritis, you see. One of the joys of being that little bit older than I was. However, for a long time, I have been keen to walk along the beaches, and follow the coastal path, between Gullane and North Berwick. So, having worked out the tide times, I decided today was the day, and off we went. Below is our starting point, the bay at Gullane. It's a lovely beach, very popular with dog walkers. This is looking east, the direction Tilly and I were going to take. Looking back, up the Forth, the unmistakable bulk of Arthur's Seat, and Edinburgh's skyline, just clear enough to see. For most of the walk, there is the choice between wandering along a series of beaches, or following a path along the top of each. There's no denying it, at heart I am a shell-seeker. I have loads of shells at home. We lived on one of the out islands in the Bahamas for a just over a year, ...

Possibly the last post and a sizzlingly hot vase on Monday

The border in our tiny garden is in an in-between phase at the moment and not very colourful, but elsewhere there are pops of high summer colour and I have brought them together in my vase today. The running wave uses Blogger as it's vehicle and they are changing the way a post is created but unfortunately I cannot make the new format work. I can't progress beyond the title! I cannot navigate to the main body of the post to create text. The new template has no prompts for adding photos, weblinks, to format the text, change font etc. It may be my old MacBook that's as fault but I can't do anything about that!! Are any other IAVOM bloggers who use Blogger having the same problems? I have tried, three times, to contact Blogger through their 'Help' prompt and received no feedback or contact whatsoever. This post is using the old 'Legacy' format, which no longer permits any kind of formatting of text, and so after four attempts I have finally manage...

the running wave

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