Horticultural

I feel like a horny-handed daughter of the soil today ...should never have taken off the gardening gloves to tie knots in wire fastenings. Another day of glorious sunshine saw me lingering in bed till after 9am, which wasn't ideal - but we were so tired last night, and Himself switched off the alarm before it made a noise (I think) and went back to sleep. Anyway, I did my Italian in bed to get it out of the way, and made bread when I got up, so maybe redeemed my apparent sloth. 

The middle part of the day, however, I spent working very hard indeed, learning how to use the correct wire-cutters properly (something that made me think of another life, long ago, involving demonstrations) and constructing a small mesh fence to stop the plants forcing us off the back path. This was a continuation of the job I started yesterday, and involved a great deal of bending over. I actually had a shot at sitting on a small stool that we used to use to reach a high shelf in the kitchen but discarded as being too likely to break and send someone flying. Rather humiliatingly, I discovered I can no longer sit on something so low - my knees won't bend far enough and I couldn't get back up without turning round to get my feet under me. (I've demonstrated this trick to Lady Findhorn fairly recently, as you do when you call in for coffee ...)

This over, I felt sitting on a bench in the garden would result in fatal stiffness so we went out. Of course we did. This time we had a quiet potter around the lower reaches of Benmore Gardens, which we had all to ourselves.The light was amazing; the scents of various plants hung heavy in the air; the colours blazed at us from different corners; the birds were all out singing Evensong. I was asked the other day whether I would ever think of moving to Edinburgh; lovely as it is, I have to admit to not feeling I want to live in a city, and when I think of walks like today's in a garden set among the hills I know I'd miss my surroundings terribly. I guess I have to balance that against missing my family ... and as usual, I park these thoughts on a shelf as being too hard to think about.

The photo is of one of the wonderful azaleas in the vicinity of the formal garden, against the bluest of skies, around 5.30pm.