a quiet place to smile my face

Although the countryside surrounding the village where I grew up consisted almost entirely of trees all the different bits had their own distinct feeling. I think the nice little tumpy woody bit around the Braid Burn area to the west of Blackford Hill reminds me of the bit just off Kirkby Lane where I would usually pop for a few minutes' quiet after finishing my second paper round on Saturdays and Sundays (on weekdays I didn't have enough time to do anything except frantically get ready for school and only did the one round which finished a couple of doors from my house). It has the same sort of mix of trees, the same irregularity of ground and the same pleasant quietness providing you get there early enough in the morning so that there aren't too many people around. Although I'll only be in the village for twelve hours on Tuesday between train to Lincoln and drive to Stansted it's one of the bits I'll try to quickly pop out to visit. As long as nothing too interesting happens on the train down it might make it into this site.

That was the morning, anyway. Dithered between Arthur's Seat, Blackford Hill and various street-based routes and decided on the south via the little collection of lanes leading down from Meadow Place. Made an half-hearted attempt to look at some shops in the afternoon although I'm still making myself not buy anything for a bit unless I see some new shorts. Nicky took back two things to M&S, bought a hat and a pair of trousers thence, went round some more shops, bought some replacement trousers elsewhere then took the first new pair back to the same woman at the same desk. That's the sort of reason why I don't like taking things back... they keep an eye on you and will probably eventually not let you buy anything unless you promise to keep it even if it doesn't fit. We also saw a suspicious-looking gentleman (tousled, stank of fags, cuts to face, smackblank eyes) being ejected from the ladieswear department by a securitator.

Weekday-not-at-work tomorrow. I only have four tasks to complete so can basically spend the whole day wandering around in daylight. I expect I will pop to the museum for the usual new-camera-roof-test.

Hope you all had nice weekends.