Response (Peter Hoffmann): Lovely to hear from you Ruth-I miss your regular, quirky wee comments. I'm just back in (2.00 am after a lovely drive up a quiet A9 on a cloudless evening with the stars out and a fantastic moon) after a week down in Edinburgh-I met up today with one of your (many!) big sisters, Fiona, at the Botanics for coffee, scones, walk and a three hour blether-emotionally exhausting for both of us (!)-you cropped up a few times (in the nicest possible way!) so perhaps your ears were burning! It was an absolutely glorious day-more than a wee hint of spring. Earlier in the week we'd also met up with my mother at Swanston-there's a nice cafe/restaurant there now. Earlier in the week I tweeted a couple of photies of Swanston Village and of a walk on the Pentlands thinking that you in The Big Smoke might particularly appreciate!
Fingers crossed, but Fiona is awaiting the results of her MA, to add to her previous brilliant achievements-she's quite remarkable and a great role model for anyone out there who is keen to dip a toe in the water and pursue academia after the first flush of youth-total respect, but even back in the 1960s at The Stair I was always very aware of how bright she was.
I'm 500 pages through editing the 600 pages of The Stair-I'm aware there are one or two wee gaps e.g. Easter so who knows what might appear-however I'm more than happy to publish contributions!...Isn't Douglas amazing when it comes to transport details-really quite uncanny-I've also exchanged one or two e mails with him and his recall of journeys on old steam trains is astonishing!
On a sadder note, Mr Bill Leslie previously at 4/1 Oxgangs Avenue died just over a week ago. He was the much loved father of two daughters, Janice and Catriona and I'm sure followers of The Stair's thoughts, sympathies and best wishes go out to them both. Interestingly Bill was a Highlander, born in Newtonmore-I wonder if Catriona was named after the heroine in one of Robert Louis Stevenson's novels. I can picture her quite well. Her sister, Janice was much older than me and I can't quite recall her so much, but I do seem to remember that she had a boyfriend (husband now?) who had a very stylish little French car-was it a Renault Dauphine?
ps On a happier note the week away and drive up was well worth it-d'Dartagnan took part in his first major British Senior Open down south-at the oldest UK fencing tournament-The Merseyside Open, really just for some fun/experience-full field of 108 and he ended up finishing 5th, but incredibly, the first Brit, behind two Frenchies/Slovak/Bulgarian and also winning the Under 18 medal! He's asleep now and back to school tomorrow, meanwhile I'm still in a mild state of pleasant shock!
1 comment:
Thanks for the photies Peter I appreciate them I hav another friend in Scotland whom I am jealous of as she often posts wonderful photies of her trips around Scotland. I certainly miss the wide open spaces that is for sure. I do like living in the big smoke but at the moment Wembley is all consuming and has taken over my life but it is enjoyable. I spent most of Sunday mingling with the Bradford fans. I do admire fiona and Liz for doing so much studying later in life I could not be bothered to bury my head in books I would rather be writing them. I do need to plan a trip to the auld country soon I do miss it.
Warm regards
Ruth
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