the running wave

There has been a lull in proceedings on the running wave.  We have had our son here from Australia, with his little girl, and last weekend we all shipped out to Majorca for my younger son's wedding.  More of all that later.  In the meantime, all I want to know is, who is going to be my walking companion once the little lady from Melbourne goes home on Thursday.  It's going to be very tough indeed. Even an ice cream isn't going to taste so good, without her alongside.

I love allotments.  Even though I have plenty of space in the garden for growing anything and everything I choose to plant, I still miss having an allotment.  I remember that every time I walked through the gate, into the allotment gardens in Edinburgh, I would feel a surge of positive energy.  I think that all the collective activity, passion, care and attention that goes into tending a plot just melds together on an allotment site, and creates a really special place. I've peered over the hedge into three different allotment gardens in the past week.  The first was the new organic India Place allotments, in Edinburgh.  It's an unusual site, and best explained by visiting their website (I don't think many allotment gardens have their own website!!)  http://www.indiaplaceallotments.org.uk   They have an architect designed hut, or meeting place, and their sheds are the old coal bunkers which belonged to the tenements which were demolished in the e...

A bird on a wire - heralding the first day of June! The month of May has been so cold that the hawthorn blossom, May blossom, is still struggling to flower.  A cold wind, sweeping down from the Arctic, leaves masses of flowers still in tight bud.  Looking on the bright side, there is still lots of that beautiful blossom to look forward to!   The weather man says that it should have warmed up by the end of this week.  I hope so!  We have our son and little granddaughter coming over from Australia on Thursday - just for two weeks, to be here for our youngest son's wedding, so we would like some warmth to welcome them here!  

I have been choosing the photos for this blog over the last couple of days.  As I write now, I am listening to the current broadcast of Radio 3's lovely programme, Words and Music , which is exploring green ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01mk8z4 ).  Looking through my selection of photos, it occurs to me that green is the theme here too!   I have been trying, for days, to get a good photo of a song thrush.  The recent rain has really encouraged them to come and peck around for the worms on the lawn, so I managed to get a snap of this beady eyed chap! East Lothian's landscape is nothing if not varied.  The following five photographs are taken on the way to Haddington.  I take a slightly longer route than most, because I love this ridge, or maybe it's an escarpment?  Either way it is a strikingly different landscape,  compared to the relatively rolling countryside around about it. East Lothian has no less than 30 castles, in va...

Apart from being my granddaughter and grandson's eleventh birthday today, it is also the State Opening of Parliament. I am not sure that just two ravens constitutes a parliament, but no matter.  There will be plenty of raucous crowing, calling and carrying on in the other place when the new intake is officially opened for business today.  Stand by - it could get quite interesting when all those reivers from north of the border get going.

Yesterday morning, at 04.18, I was woken by the call of a cuckoo!!!!!!  This has never happened to me before, in my own home!  I was so astounded that I lay there with my mouth open in amazement and astonishment.  What excitement!  The call of the cuckoo is so evocative of springtime, so particular, and, sadly, increasingly rare.  When we were in Australia three years ago, my daughter told me she had heard the cuckoo here, in the wood, and I was slightly sceptical.  A misfiring pigeon can sometimes fool you into thinking you have heard half a cuck, without the ..oo. Last May there was no cuckoo.  And early this morning, from 4 am onwards there was no cuckoo - I was on alert - so maybe this one was just passing through.  But I am so happy that it did!  It made my day because I haven't heard one this year, and the sound always reminds me of my mother (for all the right reasons) and my childhood. Another new bit of wildlife, and a new bug...

A Sunday morning visit to another garden nursery, this one on the edge of the village.  It's set in an old walled garden.  In their heyday walled gardens, and their glasshouses, must have been fabulous places, providing an enormous range of vegetables, salads, fruit and flowers for the big house.  Now all that's left are the old espalier fruit trees, still growing with their arms outstretched along the garden walls. I bought a Japanese Anemone, Wild Swan.  Lovely name, lovely plant. This afternoon Tilly and I went for a beach walk, accompanied by my eldest grandson, who is always good company on a walk!  The lane leading up to the car park is lined on either side, for about quarter of a mile, with sweet cicely.  It creates a profusion of flowers and, here, next to the white of the May blossom, they are a frothy, delicious creamy colour.   A walk with a boy has to involve climbing a tree.  He was up this beech tree ...