Bit of a mixture

Am I showing too many garden pictures, or flowers in particular, in my posts here?  Maybe I should pass on those.  Tell me what you think – please!  There just haven’t been any comments lately and I wondered if that may be the reason!  It would be great to have some feedback - comments, observations and the like, about what I put in these blog posts! 

Anyway, today’s post is a bit of a hotchpotch of things I have been doing in the last couple of weeks.  One evening I went over to Biggar to have supper with Sam and Paddy, the friends who are going to make over my garden!  They have two boys, Lewis and Fergus, lively lads if ever there were some!  Great kids though!    Ages ago I made scrapbook pages for their parents and realised I didn’t have one for the boys so I took a photo or three this visit and decided to work with this one.  Here’s what I came up with.  Fergus is the wee blond one, Lewis his big brother.   

These are Sam and Paddy’s layouts!  Named Love Affair, because of their passions, Sam for her double base and Paddy for his vast collection of vinyl!

We had a lovely supper and afterwards sat down with my garden plan, and talked costs!  I was pretty accurate with my guesstimate as it turned out, but there may be a few things that will be changed, added or abandoned as we go along, and with luck it should all happen at the beginning of August.  Quite exciting!  The basic layout will stay much the same, though the shed will be moved across the garden and a pond and bog garden constructed in the space it leaves – and I’ll have my waterfall! (See my last entry!)  The flowerbeds will be raised to different heights around the edge and a patio laid.

There was an open day recently, at the Gardens where we play Petanque , so during play we were watched by a few interested folk.  This youngster had a go, coached by Tommy and all agreed he would have to be signed up as a member!  Various activities were taking place around the gardens and this European Eagle Owl was on display!  He fairly fixed me with a stare!

 

Another day I went up to the Records Office – Scotland’s People Centre – to do a bit more family history research, and meet my sister for lunch.  I didn’t get too much information at the SPC on the family I was looking up, but a few wee snippets will be useful to find out more later.

The U3A lunch group had a visit to the Tibbie Shiels Inn at St Mary’s Loch  where the small

group of us ate in the conservatory with beautiful views of the hills and the loch round about us. Tibbie (short for Isabella) was the widow of an 18th century local molecatcher, who opened her small cottage as a hostelry to enable her to keep a roof over her family’s heads – a very early B&B, you might say.  It became a popular gathering place of the literati of the time, James Hogg, a local man, also known as the Ettrick Shepherd, being one. He is said to have been sweet on Tibbie but she would have none of him!  His statue stands near the inn on the hillside by the road. Tibbie is reported to have said that her name would be remembered long after he was gone!  True, but his name remains in memory too!  (Photo of a photo of Tibbie so reflections on the glass!)

This photo was taken on the way back to Peebles, a view back towards Innerleithen from the Paddy Slack – a road built by French prisoners of the Napoleonic war . They called it “Pas du lac” or the “way to the lake”.

So, just a few things from the past couple of weeks.  A few more next time. 

Talk again soon.