Swanning around

Sunday again. A slightly cooler morning - the cloud didn't part till 1pm - and a slightly smaller congregation at church, with a couple of cases of illness and the odd absence making a noticeable difference when we're limited to 30 in church anyway. I absolutely knackered myself afterwards with some hilarious conversation in French; one of our people married someone she met while staying at her French house and he confesses that he's not worked as hard at  learning English as he might have. Given his amazing Midi accent, there was a lot of laughter as a group of us made with the bilingual conversation and the rest went home around us. 

I don't know if it was this, or the fact that I fell asleep in the garden after lunch, that left me feeling so dead in the late afternoon. I'd been under a shade, but it was extremely hot, so I dragged myself out for a short walk round the West Bay and back before dinner. The photo above comes from that walk, showing the two swans at the mouth of the burn from the Bishop's Glen, where the weed is a wonderfully lurid green and several ducks are pottering around in a camouflaged sort of way. The beach was dotted with little groups of people that gave an idea of how it must have looked when my mother was a baby and her parents sat on the beach here in the summer 1913 or 14, my grandfather in a suit with a watch-chain - and wearing a hat. Today's people had the same douce aspect, somehow, and a few holiday-makers of advanced years walked sedately by on the promenade, much as we ourselves were doing. 

I've just abandoned watching the triathlon at the Olympics - I think it makes me feel even more tired just to watch them. Quite amazing. I can't imagine what makes an athlete want to put themselves through that. Bed, now - that's easier to imagine ...