Not drowning but waving ...*

Today began early, in a damp haar such as my friends in the East know only too well. I think it should stay in Edinburgh, personally ... I was up and doing the messages, glaring at Brexit-empty bits but being cheered up by one of the staff telling me he'd been clearing his mother's attic after her demise and had found all his old report cards, every one with comments from both me and Himself. Himself, meantime, was entertaining the plumber. (He was changing washers - one tap had begun by dripping the other evening and ended up positively running. We are past undoing taps, these days.) That all done with, I made sourdough; the loaf is now sitting triumphantly in the kitchen. 

While I was stirring and stretching the dough, I was thinking about the effect of summer weather (for by now the haar had cleared and it was lovely again) when you live in a seaside resort, even a down-at-heel faded one with memories of past glories, and have no work to go to. When I lived in Glasgow, I used to love the start of the autumn term (which was always right at the end of August - I can't be doing with the two weeks earlier return ) because it smelled of privet flowers, and the streets of Glasgow were full of drifting fluff from the rose bay willow herb and everything felt energised by the new term. Even here, I liked going out in the crisp mornings, maybe having a sandwich in my garden at lunchtime, maybe sitting out with a drink before dinner ... The thing was that the holidays were over and no longer there to fill with enjoyable but above all summer holiday activities.

The thing was that when I was a child, my summer holidays felt like heaven. I've gone on about them before - the eight weeks in Arran, or, later, the fortnight abroad, briefly at home, then off to Arran for the whole of August, there to hike, swim, lie in the sun - or sit hidden away at the top of the stairs in our holiday cottage, buried in a book while the rain fell unregarded outside. 

Now that I am retired, and all the year is playing holidays  and I live in the place my grandparents would come on holiday, I find lovely weather (beyond a day or two at a time) a challenge: what lovely thing am I going to do to make the most of it? And so if a day is spent merely pottering - or even making bread and hanging out washing and doing my Italian and arguing with the bank - I feel guilty, as if I've wasted it. (I know. I should see a shrink.) 

But not today. For that lunatic waving from shoulder-deep sea is me, and I'm back at the place where I was serenely paddling yesterday. In fact it is less calm, and there is a little breeze rippling the surface, but the high tide is just on the turn and I've not had to go miles from the edge to find depth. The water is warm on the surface, chillier underneath, but it's not really cold after the first shock and I stay in for at least 20 minutes. The only unsatisfactory thing is that OTHER PEOPLE were occupying the end of the bay where it's sandy underfoot, so I am wearing a pair of so-called waterproof sandals (I suppose they mean they don't suffer in the wet - how can shoes full of holes be waterproof?). These sandals turn out to have a degree of buoyancy, so that when I swim it's rather hard to get my feet back down again. I also have a hazy notion where the rocks lie - the barnacled ones that would take the skin off my knees if I swam over them - so I restrict myself to a small area. But as you can see, I'm having great fun. You can also see I didn't take the photo ...

Now, hours later, I feel my thighs may detach themselves from the rest of me. But hey - I did a holiday thing!



(Title pleases me, absurdly. This, for the uninitiated ...)