Today it has rained virtually all day, quite heavy rain too! So not much has happened and not much to reflect on.
Today I saw my first tourists on Easter Road!
Well I guess they were tourists, as they had big rucksacks on. Usually at this time of the year, all you see is tourists! In fact by August you are sick of tourists – now they are a rare sighting! Like they are on the verge of extinction!
It kind of feels like that at the moment, in Edinburgh!
Honey the Dog and I didn’t go for a very long evening walk, just to Kate’s Park in the heavy rain.
Even Honey didn’t looked so pleased, keeping her eyes nearly shut to protect her eyes!
I collected some more stinging nettles to practice making string from it and started that process when I got home.
This evening, I went to the Quaker Singing Group. They have been meeting once a month throughout lock-down, but I have not managed to get along to the whole thing. It’s on Zoom, which is not set up for a group of people singing.
So someone chooses a song and then everyone else is put on mute and you sing the song, with everyone else listening. Everyone else joins in, on mute, just we can’t hear each other – except the one person who isn’t on mute. If that makes sense?!
The words are Screen Shared so we can all sing along.
It seems a little strange, but actually I really enjoyed it! I am not sure what my neighbours would have thought hearing me singing loudly, to songs on my “own”.
Before lock-down we would meet in person, one Tuesday a month. It’s actually a lot easier doing it on Zoom, as it saves the travel time. It’s a good 30 minute cycle to get there and then back. The bus takes longer, as they are less regular at 9pm at night to get home! So was really handy to not even leave the house, especially with all the rain AND I don’t own a bike at the moment!
I think that is one of the hardest things I am going to find over the coming weeks, the amount of time lost due to travelling! I remember writing back in the early days of the blog about how much time is saved due to not having to travel everywhere. However, I also noticed I wrote back on Day 6 how my energy doesn’t change, due to the transitions of travelling to different locations/environments. Just being stuck at home all the time, my energy was stagnant.
It will be interesting to see if that changes!
Poetry / Art Corner
Another painting from my sister, Anna. She discovered The Paint Republic during lock-down. You can access free paint-as-you-go classes via their website or Facebook page. Or you can join for £5 a month to access over 60 classes! All online (virtual) rather than real world.
She says “Another Poppy one”.
Thanks Anna 🙂
Readers Corner
A couple of sharing’s today for Readers Corner.
Brian
Brian sent me a link telling me that the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) will be having lunchtime concerts in August taking place across different theatres and venues – The Festival Theatre, The Kings Theatre, The Hub, Leith Theatre and the Queens Hall. But due to Covid-19, the concerts will not have an audience. Instead they will be broadcast into Princes Street Gardens as part of the reboot of the Edinburgh International Festival.
The concerts will include the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Scottish Opera, Breabach, Honeyblood, Les Amazones D’Afrique and Lawrence Power.
The launch of it this Saturday, will be marked with a one hour film celebrating the 73 year history of the festival, which will be shown on BBC Scotland and YouTube.
Also as part of the festival, this weekend (Saturday, Sunday and Monday) there will be a late-night light show with 800 lights over venues which normally host EIF including Usher Hall, the Royal Lyceum, Festival Theatre and Leith Theatre.
Check out more details – https://www.scotsman.com/whats-on/arts-and-entertainment/lunchtime-concerts-broadcast-princes-street-gardens-under-edinburgh-festival-revival-2931351?fbclid=IwAR1UjWt4umB0vca2XGKf3l7VtzlR2SWdzaOyj8v7mHGDXzO9Rdp9_5Y2rqY
Thanks for letting me know about this Brian. Looks like it is going to be a great weekend and throughout August. With lots of content for the blog 😉
Penny
My mum, Penny, put a Facebook comment on yesterday’s blog (
Day 133) in relation to the main photo of Honey, saying:
“I like this picture of Honey”.
Thanks mum, I like this one too! She looks happy 🙂
It Made Me Smile
My mum, has also shared which made her smile.
It’s a post on Facebook with a little story:
A young couple moved into a new house.
The next morning while they were eating breakfast, the young woman saw her neighbour hanging the washing outside.
“That laundry is not very clean; she doesn’t know how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs better soap powder”.
Her husband looked on, remaining silent.
Every time her neighbour hung her washing out to dry, the young woman made the same comments.
A month later, the woman was surprised to see a nice clean wash on the line and said to her husband, “Look, she’s finally learned how to wash correctly. I wonder who taught her this?”
The husband replied, “I got up early this morning and cleaned our windows.”
And so it is with life… What we see when watching others depends on the clarity of the window through which we look.
So don’t be too quick to judge others, especially if your perspective of life is clouded by anger, jealousy, negativity or unfulfilled desires.
“Judging a person does not define who they are. It defines who you are.”
Thanks mum for sharing that – it’s very true 🙂
Day 23 of the Post-25 Day Push-Up Challenge
Missed this today, so 50 push-ups tomorrow!
As I come to the end of today’s blog, I have becoming increasingly annoyed as the internet is super slow tonight! Everything is taking so much longer to load-up.
It has rained virtually all day today, but still been quite warm. I walked around in my shorts all day, without socks on (to save them getting wet) and felt fine! This evening on our bedtime walk, I forgot to put a coat on, just had a jumper on and it was fine. Well apart from getting wet!
Tomorrow, I plan to head to my office The Melting Pot, which opened up again at the beginning of the week. There’s a whole host of new guidelines and even a 10 minute instructional video on how to navigate round, lots of cleaning and many new rules. As I hot-desk the cleaning is going to be much more important as others will be sharing the same desk area.
As Honey will be on her own for a few hours, whilst I am out. I plan to go for a run in the morning after Chi Gong, so she will sleep whilst I am out. That used to be my routine before lock-down, going for a long walk or run first thing in the morning. But I changed this, as hardly anyone was out and about in the morning and I found myself missing seeing people.
Hope you have all survived the rain, if you have had any where you live!
Take Care
Jim xx