A day in the sun

I think I must have spent at least 6 hours in the sun today - I feel I'm reeling off to bed with a pink face and that slightly overcooked feeling. We didn't get up very early after quite a tiring day yesterday, but pulled ourselves together after a text invitation to go round to my pal Di's for coffee and a reunion with their friends from deepest south-west England, missed, like so many friends, over the past two years because of Covid.

It was the kind of morning we enjoy only rarely in its perfect combination of good things. The east wind was still blowing, but the sky was a flawless blue other than disintegrating vapour trails criss-crossing above the Holy Loch, and the sea was the same improbable shade of indigo highlighted by white-topped waves. We sat in the garden in the lee of the house, looking out over Loch Long, drinking coffee and talking non-stop. There were hugs all round - how we've missed hugs, have we not, in our fear? There was empathy in great bucketsful, and laughter and teasing - all ingredients for a lovely morning. I've included one of my not-very-good photos of the meeting, taken in mid-conversation, as an extra.

The afternoon was for work in our own rather dishevelled garden. We have tradesmen descending on us on Monday, and one lot are going to be extending our sitting-space in the back garden so that we too have room to entertain there. Our main task was moving a crazy number of laden flowerpots to a corner out of the way, some containing plants removed from the border that is to be sacrificed. It was when I was about to move a rose in a heavy pot that it attacked me ferociously. Two very firm thorns implanted themselves in my bare forearm, and I as jerked at the pain of it one of them sort of tore itself free, making quite a hole. Dangerous business, gardening. But I was pleased that my idea of using the trolley (in foreground) to move the heaviest pots worked perfectly - that  wooden one in the background is not new and its bottom threatens to fall out. The chimney pot was interesting; it used to be on our roof, survived its removal when we put in a gas fire, and has now got the original of my thyme plants firmly stuck in it. 

We're off again in the morning; I'm sorry for my lack of journal visits, but promise, yet again, to catch up when my life settles down for ...

A day or two?