Trying

Verb or adjective? Both, I suppose. We're both trying to return to a normal sort of existence - or what passes for normal in our slightly strange lives - but this virus malarkey is trying in the extreme as it lingers on, making us both tired and snappy and - who knows? - perhaps contributing to the return of the blocked tear-duct trouble which right now is making me look as if Himself had taken a swing at me ...

Enough moaning. I managed to obtain a direct phone number for the Ophthalmology Consultant's secretary today, so that at least I have a chance of contacting someone relevant over on the other side, and to be reassured that to have pain in my arm more than two weeks after an intramuscular injection could be nothing more than a nerve that got involved, so I count these as results in a time when it's harder than ever to be seen - and all as the result of one phone call after breakfast. I had slept late, so breakfast was shortly followed by coffee, after which Himself wanted to cook a curry and I took my Italian out to the garden. At this point, before midday, it was warm and sunny and lovely and I was able to enjoy the reorganised and trimmed corner in which I sat ... though I had to leave it and go shopping because tomorrow I shall be otherwise engaged. I went to the Co-op for a change and got the most wonderful selection of soft fruits, all grown in Scotland. 

After lunch we both fell asleep in the horrid way we've been prone to, waking around 3pm to find the day had turned grey and - when I went outside to check - drizzling miserably. However, we both felt that sitting around sleeping wasn't going to help us at all, so we headed out of town into the cloud to walk along the mile of the Old Road at Benmore. That's where I took the above photo because I was suddenly overcome at the variety of reds growing in profusion beside the road. It's actually the border of someone's garden; the house was empty for some time and much of the garden is less tended than it used to be. Fairly lifted my heart, somehow, to see this wee corner.

The two miles saw us struggling to keep up the pace as we returned to the car, but it meant we felt like eating dinner instead of merely collapsing in a heap. And then we went to online Compline, which is always lovely, before subsiding for the rest of the evening. We've got another earlyish start in the morning, though I realise that the normal working hours which ruled our lives for so long now seem unrealistically challenging. 

Must be because I sit up blipping instead of going to bed ...