A rowan branch above the valley (sorbus aucuparia)

I blipped this blossom from the top of the lawn at my mother's house this morning. I'm sure that some botanical blipper will be able to tell me the name of this tree. The  branch is from a rowan tree. (Thank you Sally for the identification!)

Here we were enjoying morning coffee with my Australian cousin Edwina and her new boyfriend from Yorkshire (it's complicated). He drove up to collect her after her weekend with us. They are flying to Italy tomorrow for a holiday, then she is returning to Sydney and he to Leeds. Mr hazelh and I road-tested Mark on behalf of the rest of the family, including Edwina's parents. He passed :-)

Not long afterwards Mummy hazelh dropped the pair of us off at the station in Hexham, and we caught our two trains home once more.

Back at the flat I enjoyed two solid hours of solitude with a book while Mr hazelh prepared for his boys' beer night. It's been such a luxury to have some time and space to myself!!!

The two hours were very useful because they gave me just enough time to finish this month's book group book: The century girls by Tessa Dunlop. Then I headed down the road to ArcLight's house for a delicious Thai meal (details here) and lots of interesting chat on some tricky issues. The book won a general thumbs up, although we felt that the voice of the narrator was a little too loud in places.

Exercise today: walking (10,613 steps).