It all comes back ...

Well. That was quite a day. There were just so many ... facets. I woke feeling stressed without having worked out why: that came a little later. If I list the prime stressors of the waking moment, there would be three: the fact that #1 son was having an Andy Murray-type hip job in the next couple of hours; the more familiar but still nagging awareness that #2 son was flying to New York for work; the realisation that I had an unresolved delivery problem - not a baby, but a parcel from Amazon. All three were somewhat alleviated by the time I got downstairs: cheerful texts from both sons and a helpful actual person at Amazon dispelled the lingering gloom, somewhat. (I couldn't resist the echo of an Advent hymn there.)

Then there was the marmalade. This took the usual sticky hours, far longer than I would have believed possible, all because I didn't remember until I'd already put the stuff into jars, with little faith that it'd every really be spreadable, that last year at this time the realisation dawned on my that on the ceramic hob of my current cooker the big preserving pan simply never gets hot enough. The radiant rings under the hob have a thermostat, and if they get too hot the middle switches itself off. For some reason it works on a smaller diameter of pot, presumably because the whole base of the pot fits onto the ring without overlapping it. Anyway, I fixed it, making a very sticky mess in the process, and half of this year's marmalade is now sitting, properly set, on the worktop until I can bear to climb up and put it away.

Meanwhile text messages told me of the progress of both operation and flights and I got hungrier and hungrier. We ate toast and banana at 3pm, then went out - I was desperate for a bit of fresh air. So Himself went off in the car to the church while I walked along the West Bay and down to the Dunoon boundary, returning by the back road to join him for a quick sing through tomorrow's solo. That done, we came home and watched the rugby (Scotland v Wales - phew!) and chatted to the new hip joint at half time (he was watching it too). I dealt with the final act in today''s marmalade saga and cleaned up much stickiness so that we could have dinner, after which we both collapsed and slept over the news, which was full of Irish accents and historic moments.

You can see I'm fit for nothing now. But at least I've written an instruction on my marmalade recipe: Don't use preserving pan.

The blip above has nothing to do with stressors and everything to do with calming moments, both taken at church. One shows the sunset sky over the churchyard and some of the old stones; the other the little prayer corner in the dark church as the light outside failed.