Weekends are back

H-etc. arrived back from a whirlwind tour of central Europe on Saturday, and I surprised her by collecting her from the airport. She was laden down with baggage (serving as the pack animal to bring back winter clothes from her son's place), so particularly happy to see me. It was a pleasure to help her out for once, and a relief that Peter Ballocks should calm down now his primary torture victim is back. I told her the Braidburn dogwalkers were asking after her while she's been sailing and inter-railing through Germany, Austria and the Czech Republic, lucky cow. She was shining with the pleasure and pride of travelling with her now-grown son, and how he'd assumed trip-leader role. He is indeed a fine young man, as she frequently reminds us, and has absorbed her core values of hard work, thrift, self-reliance and adventurousness. Peter Ballocks was away finding and losing himself while the laddie was growing up, and has left little imprint. H-etc. and I followed her route on a map as she told of her adventures, and I longed for a similar trip.

You can have adventures locally too, though. The sun brings everything out of itself. This is bad news when it's the regulars from the pub downstairs but good at the Botanics. I'm fumbling with my stair key outside the pub when one of the locals issues out for a smoke. "I'll help you open your bag", he says with a leer, and "Are you a nurse?". I've been on nodding acquaintance with him before, from a time when I administered first-aid chocolate to a diabetic regular who was in acute hypoglycaemia. I thought the gentleman should be taken to hospital, and made them promise they would if he didn't recover soon. I've only had a pint in there once in 6 years, but pass it everytime I leave or enter the house and nod to regulars. Big wan has been interrogated about me by the landlord at the chippie, also wondering if I was a nurse. Anyways, I let the bag comment pass straight over my head and and said something about having too much stuff, but the nurse question was also expressed in an inappropriate manner. "No, I'm a doctor", I said, which is not quite true, as I fished out my keys and headed upstairs.

The Botanics were hoaching yesterday, but rhododendron season is in full spate. Hopefully this will last till R. is back. I took along a litre of water and two books for the afternoon, to enjoy the sun. Met a heat-befuddled peacock butterfly who posed for the camera on the way in the East Gate, but made my way the wester end to escape the pumping music from a 'roadshow' in Inverleith Park and found myself a comfortable corner in the Rock Garden to read. Within minutes a charming ?Spanish ranger asked me quietly and courteously to 'move on at my own pace', as sunbathing and picnicing were not allowed in the rock garden. Looking up and down, there were loads of other people sitting or reclining on the rock garden terraces who were doing much as I was, and I wondered why I had been selected for special treatment.

I think I was too settled-looking; a coat spread out to sit on, a roll-up in my hand, a visible bottle of water as a picnic, a vest top as sunbathing. The girl below me was reading on a blanket, but her shoulders were covered and she didn't smoke. The young couple behind me were sipping water and wore sleeveless tops, but perched upright on a rock talking, and not reading. Who can be irascible on a sunny day in April? I put out my roll-up (reserving this to dispose of in a bin, as always), packed up the books and water and trundled down the arboretum to find a bench.