Bartimaeus

On Monday morning I was hoping for a smooth journey for my sister. She had an early start as she had been invited by my sister, Margaret for lunch and she was coming to mine for tea. I hadn’t planned the meal but was confident that I would manage to rustle something up. I knew she was avoiding eating many sweet things so thought I had better not start baking. 

She was messaging me of her progress and we arranged to meet at Margaret’s. So I hopped on a bus. I had a plan for a nice place to go on a sunny day, taking advantage of Mary arriving by car and I brought along some olive bread as a lunch contribution. Mary was already there when I arrived and there was a platter of varied sandwiches, so we were well catered for. I was pleased the sky was blue as it made it a good reason to suggest an outing to Dr Neil’s Garden. I wondered if Mary might feel she had done enough driving but she was up for it and so was Margaret, so off we went. 

Straight away as we pushed through the gate with a duck motif, we saw a display of red blossom against the garden wall. We remembered our Manse garden had this japonica and later in the year it produces quince. Red isn’t a colour Margaret would choose but in the japonica she did like it.

We headed down towards the loch and saw several different little low flowers, some I didn’t know at all but Margaret and Mary did. Though the sky was blue it was a cold wind and Mary realised she had left her gloves in the car. Luckily I was managing with my hands in my pockets and had some gloves to spare. We were taken by a deep pink blossom. They were so deep in conversation it was hard to catch their smiles.

By the water it was pretty and the sun on the water was dazzling. A rosemary bush was in full bloom. This was Margaret’s colour and Mary was loving the scent. We sought a more sheltered spot and found a seat by a wall in the sun where we could bask in the warm rays. Beside it was a lovely pink flowered bush with needle like leaves. None of us knew it but my plant app identified it as in the rosemary family, but it didn’t have a a Herby smell. At first Mary thought it did till she realised it was the lingering smell from the last rub of rosemary leaf.

As well as rosemary we found some herbal medicinal plants. At this time of year, some had died back but lungwort was out in force in a mat of blue and pink. There was a bench there but we weren’t in the sunniest spot so we kept going. The garden has lots of different benches all over, all different sizes and styles. We noticed one with the same initials as our parents. We had given a bench to them as a golden or diamond wedding present and I remembered it was a snowy day when we were putting it in the garden. They were pleased to see it though it wasn’t a day to enjoy it. This would have been welcoming. I don’t know what these people’s names were but if it had been our parents that M would have been another Mary.

Mary drove us back, dropping Margaret off then back to ours where Shane was ready to deal with parking payments and Nye was ready to offer to cook tea so I was off duty and relaxing. He cooked a hot favourite with lime and coconut. Mary had brought a cake but the instructions on the recipe were to keep it wrapped for 48 hours before eating so we saved that for a future occasion.

Mary is a good knitter but shared that she had been challenged by a granddaughter to knit a whippet with a jumper. I am not an expert in toy knitting so was not able to advise about this rather demanding knit, but I set about looking for a pattern. We found one that had rather a broad muzzle and was huge. At last I came across a pattern, not only for a knitted whippet (most of them seemed to be crocheted) but also with a jumper on and what’s more it was free so I downloaded that one. Iwas having trouble with my simple hat, having misread the pattern right at the start, so I wish her luck with the whippet when she has less than a month to make it. In the morning she claimed she’d had the best sleep in ages on our bed settee. That was just as well as I hadn’t done any cooking or baking to welcome her!

We went along to see Margaret again the next morning before Mary had to set off back home. What a pleasure it was  to have Mary to visit, really pleased she managed to make it along while we were still in Edinburgh.