Pictorial blethers

By blethers

Second life

Before I got up this morning, I sat in bed with my tea (Darjeeling with a slice of lemon, since you ask) listening to Michael Moseley extolling the virtues of walking briskly to keep yourself healthy. I was feeling quite smug until he suggested it was even better to do this thing within two hours of waking ... Despite my slight suspicion that I might enjoy that on a sunny morning, I was doomed to spend the rest of the morning chasing my tail, and not in a healthy outdoorsy way.

The rot set in when I rang my sister before I'd washed up after breakfast. (No, I don't have a dishie). Then I remembered (a) I had to take fish for dinner out of the freezer and (b) I'd intended making my click & collect order before coffee. I was on track to do both - until the Morrison's website threw a wobbler. Several fruitless tries at checking out and a ten-minute wait on the phone (dire music, by the way) later,  I spoke to a man. It was Mastercard, apparently. Could I register another card? I tried, while he hung on. No go - even the attempt was refused. Then man admitted it wasn't just Mastercard at all: the site was having big problems. All, however, would be well after midday. See how the morning's falling apart?

I won't go on. It worked after 3 tries at 12.20pm. While waiting, I chatted over coffee (FaceTime, not real). And I ended the morning by quickly shoving some towels in to wash and FaceTiming my younger granddaughter - a delightful call in which I realised two things: she's growing up so quickly (she's 10) since I last saw her and  (b) she's suddenly - or did I just not notice? - displaying so many of her father's traits, interests and mannerisms that I remember from when he was 10. (Ewan, if you read this - have you realised this?) I'd thought she was so much like her mother - but this was a revelation.

Back to Benmore Gardens in the afternoon. That's where the blip was taken. It's a huge tree trunk that at some time in the past has been felled/broken about 30' up and which now has at least two different trees and a shrub growing on top of it or from it - I couldn't tell which. You can see the stem of some clinging thing running right down the trunk - it's an extraordinary composite. We heard a coal tit, a thrush - which perched on a branch and fixed me with a beady eye - and a multitude of chaffinches, which were swooping and feeding on the feeders in what I think of as the squirrel area. Didn't see any squirrels though - are they all away having babies?

I've decided what defines much of my sense of futility these days. All these activities are pastimes - pleasant enough ways of passing time until the next interesting event, be it travel, musical, or social. Only thing is, there's no next interesting event - just life, trickling through my fingers like sand. 

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