Itch-y

In the morning we walked up the garden with L to visit Ina, Arnold's widow. She seemed very pleased to see us and loved the big tin of Scottish shortbread we'd brought her; although she is almost blind now, the tin was embossed so she could trace out the shape of the stag at bay with her fingers! We spoke about trees, birds, studying maths and physics, and playing table tennis in my great-grandparents pub.

Later we went over to Compton Verney, which we'd never been to before; it's a beautiful place with Capability Brown landscaped ground and a permanent art exhibition - but it was a real bonus that when we arrived we found out that the Lost Words exhibition opened that very day. Beautiful paintings and words. We bought a copy of the book for ourselves plus one as a gift for L and J. The sheep were in the field above C.Brown's lake - one of them was having a very satisfying scratch on the railings.

In the evening J was indulged with a viewing of his favourite Strictly Come Dancing and we had more delicious food and wine.