Bartimaeus

Returning from Aberdeen, I managed to complete my retro pattern, about forty years in the making. I managed a fudge of the borders and it looked fine and you'd hardly know it wasn't intended to look like that at the neck. 

I was pleased to get the chance to wear it on a short meet up with two other knitters who had come to Edinburgh for a yarn festival. I was giving this one a miss as I had only just been to one but I had a quick coffee with them before they headed off and showed me progress with the scarf I had started that week.

In previous years I have been slightly miffed to be away from Edinburgh, just as the cherry blossom is about to emerge. It's a splendid sight. We had an invitation from friends whose terrace overlooked the Meadows and they hoped to catch the blossom. The blossom did come out but it was a tad chilly so the party stayed inside. Shane enjoyed it but as I was clearly starting a cold, it seemed antisocial to attend. 

I was well occupied starting a project of a pigeon to inhabit a Doocot at Newhailes estate, as well as the sapphire scarf. I was having fun making the coloured neck of a pigeon with green chenille and mixed textures of pinky purple. I resorted to looking up a video as a reminder on how to do a "wrap and turn" to shape the neck. 

Fortunately my cold improved for me to attend an ex colleague's retiral tea. She wanted previous colleagues as well as present ones and the room was full of folk I hadn't met in a long time, some still working and others long retired, like the manager I had when I first started. Great to catch up and great to know I didn't have to go into work the next day!

In fact the next day was spent meeting up with Wendy and Stuart who were briefly in Edinburgh, and having missed them at the weekend, We had lunch and they had a pastry. It's a tempting array.

I was glad to catch up just before they left. We went to admire the blossom together afterwards and reminisced about mutual friends who had travelled to Japan at cherry blossom season, but were unlucky that it was unseasonably late or early and there was none to see, while in Edinburgh it was blooming beautiful. Wendy got a great pic of the blossom with bikes flying past. I tried to get both avenues together.

I croaked through choir, that evening. Between the cold and all the chatting in a crowded room, with no sound absorbency, at the retiral tea the day before, my vocal cords were cracking up under the strain. I sang (softly) a seasonal Japanese song, Sakura, about going to see (and smell) the cherry blossom. Gentle tones are just what that song requires.

The next day Shane and I took a train to Dunbar, where the community bakery that had suffered a fire had reopened. Outside I recognised a teacher from a school I used to work in and miraculously her name popped straight into my head. 

We had a good cycle ride seeing a hare running on the road ahead before turning into a field, and a tractor doing mysterious stripes and turns.... Very pretty but to what purpose we wondered.

Shane wanted to impress with more flowers. The bluebell wood he was hoping to show me was needing a bit more time for them all to open, but it was a taster, that made me want to return. The ride was fun too so I was happy to repeat the whole experience. I could see they would be good and our pastries by the pond were a delightful stop.

We had a quick turnaround at home to eat and get back out, as that night we had tickets to the circus. We have been to Circus Zyair twice before, when on our canal travels, but it was taking place on the Meadows so on the rule of seizing opportunities, we went again. Nye joined us and the performers did not disappoint. I remembered some routines from before but there were new ones too. The repeats were still fun and we sat in a different place which gave us a different perspective of the tumbles.

Nye observed the juggler's assistant had hyper mobile joints like he had. He could tell by her stance. I was pretty sure she was a bit more gymnastic than him though. She was one of the pair of girls who had dangled from their hair last year. They had two different routines, together but had dropped the hair swinging part. They were dazzling nonetheless, while flying around in the air or contorting themselves at ground level. Shane remarked that people seeing a photo would think it was surely AI generated as there were the wrong number of limbs supporting them and their positions seemed impossible. Nye wasn't going to attempt anything close.

 People are often impressed by Shane's tandem handling, but our nifty cycling was nothing compared the feat of the unicyclist on a rope.

I went with my sister see the famous cherry blossom on the Meadows the next day. There was a cool wind but plenty sun, so lots of people were out. It attracts tourists and locals alike. The sunshine also brought forth many to lounge on the grass and go to the Pavilion cafe for refreshment. Someone let us know she was leaving so we could have her table, as all the others were taken.

Shane and I had another outing on the tandem combined with another entertainment we have enjoyed before. The No 1 Ladies' Accordion Orchestra, who were playing in Ettrickbridge. Our friend Liz used to play in it. She wasn't in the orchestra but she was in the audience so we still saw her. 

We were lucky with our weather for our cycle to the concert. We couldn't choose a route for a different time or direction, since we had a specific destination. We had checked the weather before purchasing tickets.

Bryn and Nye had purchased tickets for a concert in Glasgow many months in advance. I was looking forward to seeing Bryn. Nye booked a table for us all at Chaakoo. Nye and I set off to the station to pick him up late afternoon and I was pleased for Bryn that he was arriving while the cherry blossom was still in full bloom since I knew he loves it. On the way I saw a table set up in the avenue of cherry trees we were walking through, with a young woman in traditional oriental dress standing there. I assumed it might be connected to the Japanese association with cherry blossom. We had no time to stop and other people were already gathered at the table. On the way back I noticed it was still there but no-one else was there so we stopped to see what it was about. I had presumed wrong and the stall was Chinese. There was a quiz to do about bamboo.

We had a go at the quiz altogether and did not do too badly. The only one we got wrong was the one about flowers. We made lucky guesses. She had made an extraordinary matcha dessert in the shape of bamboo with pooled clear water (slightly less gelatinous) and a floating flower on top. Only one was left so she gave us a knife and Bryn divided it in three and we had a sweet sticky dessert mouthful. Bryn wasn't a fan so I had extra - an intriguing flavour but probably the experience would have been easier for us if we had an eating implement and dish, so we didn't have oozy sticky hands all the way home. Still it was a new unexpected experience for us.