Doing things in January

Goodness, it's been quiet since they all went away. We haven't even seen the Edinburgh family for a few days because the other grandparents have been staying and we like to allow them their turn in peace. But Daughter 2's hyacinths are blooming beautifully (thank you) - I so love the scent of hyacinths.

Mr L and I took ourselves for a walk along the river. It was pretty wintry-looking, though not cold.

We visited the Modern Art Gallery, where we didn't look at the art but did have a coffee in the cafe

and then walked out again, past the Landform, where no children were playing.

We've chatted to Littlest on the phone.

How amazing we people of last century would have found it to be able to see people we were phoning! I remember that in discussions of the outlandish future possibilities of this, people used to say: what if you were phoned up and you were still in your pyjamas? or the house was a mess? We were envisioning a huge tv on the wall, like Big Brother, I think.

And while going through my mum's stuff (yes, this is the year, 6 years after her death, when I'm going to sort it out) I found this photo of my father's mother, whom I never really knew, since she moved to the south of England when I was about five. Here she is at 71, only three years older than I am now. She looks older than me, to my eyes, but possibly I'm fooling myself. (Maybe it's the hat.) Sadly she developed dementia a few years later. We did see her a few times after she moved south, but travelling was more difficult then and she didn't really have much of a part of our lives. Which is sad.

And I've spent two sessions in the garden, cutting things down and admiring the snowdrops which are bravely pushing through with their promise of spring.