Berwick upon Tweed
But I’m not there I’m being rained on in Leith. I woke up to the most grim of days… definite air of November. Low light made worse by the bulb in the kitchen going! However I had a lovely if hectic weekend Linlithgow on Saturday enjoying the delights of the Gala Day Parade and yesterday a pot luck dinner at some friends.
Hectic week fantastic seminar on Geddes & Modernism followed by Annan Lecture in Glasgow for the Scottish Society for the History of Photography. Meanwhile am checking out Locatelli recipes for upcoming Cookbook Club.
Today was a no good day at work – hot in office wearing wrong kind of clothes – and other irritating things happened. I started to trudge home via the supermarket then it occurred to me with an evening stretching out I did not have to go home and cook so I got a bus to Portobello ate scampi and chips on the prom. Enjoyed woolly dogs going mad in the water and ambled slowly back. I feel a bit less frazzled. I’ve not been for months and months. I forget that with a soupçon of more energy I can spend some of it being nice to myself instead of just expending it on others or collapsing onto the bed.
My aunt is visiting. At my parents we brought out a book of David Goldblatt’s photographs (my aunt had seen a large exhibition of his work in Sydney). We flicked through ‘Granny Minnie lived in a flat just like that.’ she said pointing to a 50’s two story block in Johannesburg but not on that street. I finally find the picture of the Renoir sculpture at a property owned by the Oppenheims. I remember my dad saying my grandfather had been at its unveiling. We discuss why – my aunt thinks he treated some Anglo-American executives (he was a doctor). Tonight we tumble through a list of relatives, Ginger Minnie, Big Silvie and her children Evvie , Heidi and …. Viv and Maureen, Helena and Cozzzi (noted for his eccentricity of taking black African taxis as they were cheaper). How did we loose our patent medicine family fortune? Aunty remembers being in the car for many hours while my grandparents were closeted in a lawyers office. Great Grandpa was diddled.. we haven’t even come onto Cyril who was the Willy Wonka of the family owning a sweetie factory. Hope to catch up with him on Friday.
When I first heard the phrase I thought ‘YES MY LIFE’. But no this is a real library in Edinburgh (motto Changing the World One Mistake at a Time) dedicated to financial education to stop further economic catastrophies. It is free to join.
Evelyn Dunbar Women repairing camoflage netting
Dreich beyond dreich. Waiting for people do room viewings. Time for a cup of tea
