We went to the first day of the British Open. We parked ourselves at the 17th hole and enjoyed the spectacular views at Muirfield:
Here’s Phil Mickelson on his way to his eventual win:
Others did not fare so well. Colin deemed the next day’s sports headline “typically British”!
The real competition began later that week, of course:
“Pitch and Putt”
Hope your weekend is wonderful!
My husband has always loved Scotland, where he was born and spent the first twelve years of his life.
He and his dad took a hike around Ben Ledi, the first hike they had done together when he was a little boy. When they first walked the trail decades ago, these trees had just been planted and were knee-high:
Although it’s a little grainy, I was so glad they were able to mark this occasion by taking this photo at the top:
That evening he humored me by taking me to this church we kept passing en route to the cottage, so I could get some photos:
Like the trees, the gravestones dramatically showed the passage of time. On some stones the elements had completely erased the engraving, which once marked the day someone who had been loved and cherished was born and the day they died:
The next day we took a day trip to Dollar. We parked our cars on the beautiful street bisected by a babbling burn, right next to the house where my husband first lived:
We walked to Mill Green and the kids played in the icy cold stream where my husband and his brother used to play as children:
We trekked up Dollar Glen to Castle Campbell, once known as Castle Gloom:
By the time we got there, the kids were exhausted:
They revived with a game of roly poly:
…which was fabulous, until Someone-Who-Shall-Remain-Unnamed rolled right into a pile of dog poop.
We continued our tour by stopping to see the church where my husband had been baptized as an infant:
And then it was back to the cottage, and to an early birthday celebration for both my husband and daughter:
We can only capture these fleeting moments of our “one wild and precious life” imperfectly in photos, in stone, in our memories…but by God we try.
The next day the kids visited Stirling Castle:
In the afternoon, we took the Sir Walter Scott steamer, first launched in 1899, around Loch Katrine:
Back at the cottage, the kids happily took advantage of the long hours of daylight to kick around a soccer ball:
Look, my photography trick still works like a charm! To get this:
…let the kids do this first:
or this nonsense:
Happy Birthday to my one and only:
The morning after we arrived at my in-laws house in England, we took the train to Scotland. Colin had been in Edinburgh all week singing with his choir at St. Mary’s Cathedral and we were going to meet up with him there.
Colin met us at the station and we walked through West Princes Street Gardens to St. Mary’s.
We walked past the Floral Clock:
Edinburgh Castle perched high on a hill top:
And this statue:
The kids and I cooled our heels at a nearby store while Colin’s group rehearsed for their final Evensong:
“Impressive!” I said when we finally walked into the cathedral.
“Really?” Colin sniffed, “It’s not as if it’s an original medieval church or anything. It might date to the Victorian age.”
Whatever.
The boys had just bought a Tintin Cuthbert keychain and were delighted to discover that their kneeler cushion happened to feature St. Cuthbert.
After the Evensong, we made a pit stop at Tesco to stock up. Colin was excited to find:
And then it was off to meet the rest of the family at the cottage we’d rented for the week in Aberfoyle:
View from the cottage:
Flowers in the garden:
The countryside around the cottage:
We’ll be starting our trip back to the states tomorrow and I’ll start posting again when I can. More adventures ahead…This Saturday we will be celebrating my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary and then we’ll head to the beach with my whole clan – all seventeen of us!
By the time we were about to leave for England, I felt like I had spent half a lifetime doing load after load of laundry, sorting through clothes, creating piles of things to pack, editing and re-editing those piles, writing up a hefty instruction manual for the small army of people taking care of our dogs, cleaning the house…I thought I was handling it all pretty well, but I must have been emitting serious stress vibes. As I was going about my business tying up loose ends before we actually headed to the airport, my son came to me and said in the soothing tones one would use when talking to a child about to have a tantrum, or a lunatic holding a lit stick of dynamite, “Mom…I know packing stresses you out, but could you please, please try to stay calm?”
It would have been a lot easier to, were it not for the incessant questions:
“So, when are we going to leave?”
“What time is our flight?”
“Are we almost ready to go?”
When my daughter started drumming her little hands on the kitchen counter, I lost it just a teensy tiny little bit:
“Please go sit quietly in the living room while I finish getting ready to go and don’t ask me any more questions!”
Other than running into the President at Dulles and getting my kidneys thrashed all the way across the Atlantic by the antsy toddler behind me kicking my seat, the trip was uneventful.
We made it to Hall Bank…
The boys were reunited at last:
Can you hear the swelling of the violins?
Seconds later…
The cousins were there waiting!
That first day the boys initiated their little sister into a sacred rite of passage that the children in our family undergo at the age of seven:
She was discouraged and exhausted:
But a week later:
She is now our third child to learn how to ride a bike at Granny and Granddad’s house.
The last time we were in England was four summers ago. This was the day my son learned how to ride on the very same bike:
It’s been wonderful to reconnect with family here, but I’m missing my family in the U.S. Yesterday was my father’s birthday and today is my mother’s. Sending happy birthday wishes from across the pond for the two very best parents and finest human beings I know. xoxoxo
We are finally heading out to rejoin my husband and son in England today. My oldest son and daughter have been mooning around the house for more than a week missing their brother. My son, in particular, has surprised me by the depths of his melancholy. He keeps asking to see my phone so he can look at the photos of his brother my husband sent by text. I am reminded of when my oldest sister left for college. All that first year my mother would stare out the window as she washed the dishes, sighing mournfully with large tears trickling down her face.
“Is he missing me as much as I’m missing him?” he broods as he stares at the photos. Just in case, the other day he handed back my phone and said, “Here, take a picture of me to send to him.”
On Saturday after gazing wistfully once again at the photos we’d received so far, he started laboriously pecking away at the minuscule keyboard.
I’ve learned my lesson. Our time together is too short. We will never travel separately again, if we can help it.
And now, at long last, we are on our way! I’m looking forward to having the time to write at reasonable hours while we are away. (I winced a little when I realized the photo would reveal the embarrassing hours I tend to keep). I hope I’ll be able to send dispatches from England and Scotland. Until then, I hope every single day is wonderful!
This is my “garden” at this time of the year:
The Weed-oretum in all its glory.
Clearly, I have long surrendered to the malevolent forces of summer in Virginia.
My kids always ask me why there aren’t any flowers in my garden in the summer. Here’s my answer:
This. This is what happens when you venture outdoors in mid-July in Virginia.
Why put yourself through the misery of being poached alive in the heavy, sticky, humid air when instead you can swan around enjoying landscapes from the the air-conditioned comfort of your very own chariot of fire?
My sweet pimped out ride. See that Albemarle County Schools magnet on the gas cap? Custom, Baby. I’m thinking about having flames painted along the sides next…
This is the best time of the year to enjoy the weedy splendor of roadside displays espied from my car windows. My favorite? Queen Anne’s Lace – the essence of summer.
Even better in combination with its constant companion, the cornflower:
Bad picture…Didn’t want to get out of the car to take it!
Strewn by the invisible, artful hand of a master gardener, these lovely weeds are all the flowers I need to get me through the summer.
Last Friday morning I was in a big fat rush. It was going to be a busier day than usual at work. I woke up stressed out about all the documents I needed to crank out, the emails I had to answer, and the presentation I was going to give that still needed fine-tuning. I wanted to get the kids to our neighbor’s house early so I could get to work.
To my frustration, instead of letting me drive them there, the children begged to be allowed to walk. I didn’t have the heart to say no, but I warned them that they would need to hurry. I drove the short distance myself, passing them as they walked. I parked the car at our neighbor’s house and waited for them. While I stood there waiting, acorns turned into mighty oaks, mountains eroded into plains, and species evolved.
I was reminded of my son’s first tee-ball experience. During one of his games I was standing behind the fence right behind his two coaches. Whenever it was time for the two teams to switch sides, they would tuck their chaw into one cheek with their tongues so they could yell out, “HUSTLE, BOYS! COME ON! HUSTLE! HUSTLE! HUSTLE!” as they stood there with their arms crossed over their beer bellies. All the little four year olds would run across the field as fast as their little legs could carry them. My son would lope along at a gentle pace a few yards behind the pack. At one point, one of the coaches turned to the other with a look of disgust and spat, “That boy don’t know the meaning of hustle.”
As I waited by the car in front of our neighbor’s house I could see my children slowly ambling along the road and thought, “Come on kids, hustle, hustle, hustle!” As if in perverse response to my mental plea, I saw them slow down instead, and then drop to the ground to inspect something.
“Come here, Mom! You have to take a picture of this!” my son called to me.
For a second I thought about scolding them and reminding them that I was in a hurry. For some reason, (OK, probably because my son so adroitly played to my photo obsession), I grabbed my camera and walked back to where they were.
To be honest, I was kind of disappointed at first when I realized they were just looking at a caterpillar. But they were both so completely entranced that I crouched down to look at it myself. I could see their point. The translucent lime green skin! The perfectly segmented body! Those curious speckles!
The caterpillar was a cosmic gift. For a moment, the mere fact of its existence arrested time, that most precious commodity of all, and we were wonderstruck. Oh, to always have the open heart and reverent eyes of a child…to slow down enough to see the abundant miracles around us and to know instinctively that appreciation of these wonders must always take precedence over lesser concerns.
When we were in Arlington this weekend, I noticed my mother was having more trouble than usual getting into the car. Upon closer inspection I realized she had a bruise on her chin.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Oh, well…I fell the other day,” she said reluctantly.
“WHAT?!” I gasped in horror.
“I fell outside on the stairs that go to the basement and I couldn’t get up.”
The old “Help! I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” commercial immediately came to mind.
“Oh no! What did you do?” I asked.
“Well, since I couldn’t get up, I just stayed there on the ground for awhile.” My heart was breaking into a million splintery shards as I pictured my elderly mother face planting on the cold hard ground.
She started to grin and continued, “And then I noticed there were some weeds right where I’d fallen. So, since I couldn’t do anything else, I started pulling out the weeds. After a little while I could get up again.”
Yep. That’s my mother.
My sister bandages my mom’s banged up leg.
I’ve been at the hospital with my daughter for a couple days. She suddenly fell ill on Saturday while we were visiting with our family in Arlington. She has an as-of-yet unidentified infection, which is causing her to have a fever and headache. I’m hoping she’ll be discharged on Monday. I’m really hoping that she’ll be fully recovered by Friday, when she, her brother and I are supposed to fly to England to reunite with the rest of our family, who flew there ahead of us last Wednesday.
Being in the ER and at the hospital brings back so many memories…Last night when her gurney was wheeled into the room where they do chest x-rays, I had to laugh a little despite the situation.
“Do you remember the last time you were in this room?” I asked my daughter. She looked at me blankly.
“Remember when you swallowed the ‘golden screw’?” I asked.
She glared resentfully at the unwelcome reminder. (Kind of like this):
A few years ago, she came to me with a scared, guilty look on her face. She informed me that she had accidentally swallowed “a golden screw.” After this initial confession, her gut survival instincts kicked in. She worked out a story and she tenaciously stuck to it as if she’d been schooled by the US Special Ops on how to withstand brutal interrogation tactics. That day, scores of doctors, nurses, technicians, and family members asked her variations of the same, obvious question: “Why did you swallow the screw?” At first she was patient with her interrogators. She responded in a brisk, unapologetic, business-like tone: “It was an accident.”
People would insist on pressing her for a little more information, “But how did the screw get in your mouth?” or “Why was the screw in your mouth?” The girl never wavered from her version of the events. “It was an accident” was all anyone ever got from her, though by the end of the day her patience was wearing thin. She could no longer hide her exasperation with the relentless repetition of a question she had already answered so clearly and conclusively. When asked the same irritating question, her little shoulders would heave with an exaggerated sigh. She would reply for the umpteenth time, “IT. WAS. AN. ACCIDENT!” Although she didn’t actually tack on the word, “Dumbass!” you could tell that was exactly what she was thinking.
We have swallowed a golden screw. It’s been a rough couple of days, but there have been some sweet moments. I have been filled with gratitude for so many things and for so many people. When we arrived in Charlottesville at 9 pm on Saturday, my son urged me to take his sister straight to the ER. He reassured me that he would take care of our dogs and that he would be OK, even if it turned out that he would be left on his own if she were admitted. I was so proud of him. The ER attending happened to be his Sunday School teacher. He offered to swing by our house to check on him on his way back home when his shift ended at 1 am. In the morning our fairy godmother neighbor swooped in to bring Nicholas over to her house and took care of him until another friend came by to take him swimming and then back to their house so he wouldn’t have to spend another night alone. Other friends and family members have generously offered their help. At the hospital we have gratefully appreciated the kind ministrations of nurses, whom I wholeheartedly worship as higher beings.
Although the circumstances are lousy, it’s been good to have this time with my girl too. After she endured the traumatic experience of getting her IV put in, she said through her tears: “I feel so sorry for really little kids who have to get IVs.”
“You’ve been one of those little kids, too,” I pointed out.
With all the weight and experience of her seven years my daughter replied, “Yeah, but I’m not little anymore.”
Today we watched the men’s Wimbledon final. The most entertaining part of the game for me was listening to Tatiana’s expert running commentary. She reeled off stats and filled me in on the human interest backstories like a pro. She conked out from exhaustion before the game ended. When she woke up again we turned the television back on to see that Andy Murray had won the Wimbledon title. We cheered for Murray and expressed our sympathy for his opponent. I made her giggle when I said, “Oh look at that. Poor Djokovic only gets 1.2 million.” We’ve commiserated over the lousy hospital food. We’ve had chit chats about this and that. And tonight I sang her to sleep with one of our favorite old lullabies, Loch Lomond, in honor of Murray and our upcoming trip to Scotland.
o wonderful, wonderful 