Always learning ...

It didn't rain today. IT DIDN'T RAIN TODAY! There was a lovely sunrise (extra) at 7.36am for the first day of meteorological spring, though the sun didn't really stay for most of the day, but I was able to do two loads of washing and more or less dry them outside. I wrote up my notes from last evening - amazing how handwriting that seemed clear enough at the time becomes some obscure script by morning - and somehow found it was lunchtime. I watched a bit of Alexei Navalny's funeral procession - such brave people gathered there, with their red flowers and their renewed hope in the face of the cordon of grim-faced police - and wondered at the re-appearance of George Galloway on the British political stage - Gorgeous George, as he was known back in the last century when he was my mother's MP. He's a shameless orator - but history is on his side this time, I believe. 

After lunch I abandoned Himself making curries and went for a walk in Benmore Gardens with Di. The photo above shows a carving of a huge pine cone which has been there for decades without any real explanation, so I was glad to see this new board tying it to the writer Robin Jenkins and his famous book The Cone Gatherers. I particularly enjoyed his book The Changeling, which is set in Dunoon and Toward, where Jenkins lived, though the names have been slightly altered. (I remember an amalgam of a place called Towellan!) The huge vivid red rhododendron at the foot of the hill is out now, and there is a considerable amount of frogspawn in the pools. 

We were both knackered for different reasons, but we puffed manfully (or womanfully) to the top of the hill and came down the steep way I never come because of knees. (Not mine). The curry was excellent - I love having dinner cooked for me! 

We've stayed up far too late watching a harrowing film about the Boxing Day tsunami in Thailand, but dragged ourselves away when I set it to record the ending. Some of the acting from the children in it is horribly convincing. We may still have the debris from the October floods to clear up - I saw some trucks today near the river - but at leas the sea stays where it ought... for now.