There's been lots of on-line fun and entertainment in the last few weeks, some socially distanced outdoor meetings and a couple of decent walks.  One of the latter rather forced upon me when I went out to go to the Botanic Gardens having heard that they had reopened.  When I got there I discovered that you currently need to book in advance and that that day's tickets were exhausted.

So I set off along the Rockheid path towards Stockbridge.  When I emerged from the path instead of heading down to my left I crossed the road and followed a path that I'm sure didn't use to be there.

It led along to Inverleith park behind the Grange cricket ground.  What a good spot to be able to watch a game from.  Mental note made.

I bumped into a friend as I entered the park (spookily enough at the exact spot at which I had bumped into another friend the last time I was there).  I chatted to her and her grandchildren for a wee while and then walked on through the park and past the Gothic marvel that is Fettes.

I popped into Waitrose and bought some of the goodies that my local supahs don't stock and bussed my way back to as near as one can get to Leith Walk now that the tram works have shaken up traffic flows.

On-line socially there was Claire's quiz at which I performed miserably and the altogether intriguing mystery game called Plymouth Point where we followed clues to find a missing person.  I can't say I contributed a lot to the uncovering.  The heavy lifting being mostly done by the social media savvy younger members of the group.

I joined a Zoom event to watch a film Phil had been involved in making in Athens about democracy and to listen to some of the discussion that took place afterwards.  It was interesting but I don't give much for my chances of seeing a purer, more direct form of democracy springing up in my lifetime.  I'm not altogether sure that it would not be better to try to build on the representative form that we have at present.

I enjoyed Philip Glass's Akhnamen from the Metropolitan Opera

and several shows from the National Theatre.  A stunning Midsummer Night's Dream, a gloriously theatrical Amadeus, The Deep Blue Sea full of agonising emotion but which might have been better served by a stage half as wide and Les Blancs, a take on the chaos and brutality of decolonisation.

A lunchtime series on Radio 4 led me to the documentary film Icarus about doping in Russian sport.

Amongst the DVDs I ordered as makeweights to save postage on The Way We Live Now was Middlemarch which I enjoyed very much. I think the novel must have been amongst the many books that I disembarrassed myself of some years ago.  I'm now tempted to rebuy it but I'll endeavour to wait for the library to reopen.

I've read a few lightweight books, not all of them worth bothering with and am almost finished with The Way We Live Now which I bought as a result of watching the DVD.  I'm very glad I did it's an absolute pageturner.

I took the bus one day down to Silverknowes and enjoyed one of my favourite walks along to Cramond. It was a great deal busier than when I walked there a couple of months ago.  Social distancing was noticeable by its absence.

Cramond Island from Silverknowes

A corner of Cramond

Cramond imagined under the Romans