Onwards and upwards ...

I'm beginning to think I should have adopted the pandemic practice of some other blipper and numbered the days since it all kicked off, because I'm finding it harder and harder to come up with a headline at all, let alone a pithy one...

So first, the relevance of today's. Himself has been crashing about intermittently in the loft for several weeks now, taking days off for holidays, hot days (the loft is unbearable if it's too hot) and days when his back or his knee hurt. But the other day he announced that he'd done all he could. It was my turn. So this morning I spent a hot ninety minutes organising a few crumbling packets of stuff from my past - it's funny how we think putting papers in a stout plastic bag will keep them tidy, without thought of the bad things that happen to plastic as it ages, especially in a sunlit, hot loft. When I don't have another photo for the day, I'll concoct a sample and go off on a ramble, but today I've only just started. I'll come back to it.

By the time I staggered back down the ladder the sun had come out and it was time for lunch, in the garden again but sans parasol because of the breeze. (It wasn't so hot - I wasn't thinking of it blowing away). I did some Italian on the phone while I was sitting there, but was frustrated by having made too many silly errors - Duolingo on the phone doesn't let you go on unless you pay actual cash to buy your way back in; otherwise you have to wait four hours. Time for a wee walk...

Which is where my blip comes from. The shoreside path from the beach in Glenfinart Bay in the early evening as we walked back from the hillside above the bay. We'd heard cows bellowing madly in the field below (why?) and seen huge gunnera plants just lurking in the woodland in a foreign sort of way (I don't know how they got there, but they've been for a while.) It had been another ultimately restorative outing in a day marked by various niggling symptoms and increasing irritation.

While writing this, I've made an assignation for tomorrow morning - which is just what I need in these vacuous days. And here's a wee thought for bedtime: For about 20 years, I was a child. 8 years to explore carefree adulthood. 20 years being a hands-on parent. After that, it's back to being on our own again. It's been 27 years already ...