Time and Tides

Apologies if I'm riding rough-shod over Blip etiquette, but I did not take this photo. I'm having a tech nightmare and can't get the photos I took today on to the internet, so this is a phone pic by our son during our last day on Mull - and it's better than anything I took, anyway

I remember walking coastal paths with our children when they were small(er). Devising strategems to keep them going when tiredness was creeping in; making sure we matched our pace to theirs; doing our best to make it fun and fulfilling, not just a duty to us or something that had to be done to avoid criticism. And I remember very clearly an awareness even then that one day all this would be reversed. One day I would be the one for whom the walk must not be too long or too fast; the one with the lighter load and the desire not to let the side down.

Now here we are, those days are with us. This is the natural way of things, not something to be fought or resented. For as long as we still want to walk together, and share our hopes, and insights, and the things that make us laugh, that's good enough for me. And while we walk the coast and talk together, we are passing not just through the biting wind and blinding sunshine of a perfect island winter day, but through our past and our future and all the shorelines we share

And so it is him who has the energy to descend to the "whisky cave", and feel something of the ghosts around the old still and capture this picture of both the concealed cavern and the sparkling day. And I'm happy to have the help and another shared memory