Cheerfulness kept breaking in ...

I'm sure these were words spoken several times onstage by the late Leonard Cohen in his introduction to "Ain't No Cure for Love", and they feel appropriate for today, when these two lovely collection of flowers arrived in celebration of Mothering Sunday tomorrow and cheered me up no end! As another blipper has remarked, mornings can be difficult in the current situation, and missing family is a prominent feature of my gloom, so the flowers, and the subsequent conversations, lifted my mood appreciably. So did a FaceTime visit to #2 son's house, to watch my youngest grandchild Anna do a presentation, complete with PowerPoint, about her Home School - even if we weren't able to share the aperitifs she provided for the actual visitors. (Extra photo)

Apart from that, I noted two things today. One is that by the end of the day my voice was as tired as after a day's teaching. The social distancing that we're practising seems to result in our phoning each other more often - today I had four phone calls, two of which lasted over 30 minutes, and two FaceTimes, involving more chat. Even on our walk this afternoon, above the silent Loch Tarsann, we talked endlessly. The second is that by the time I've done all my online contacting and listened to the news there seems to be less time than ever - though today I did have time to poach pears in red wine and create a great burned black bit on the hob because the sticky liquid boiled over when I wasn't looking.

It's tempting simply to hibernate. But when the problem of shopping comes up again, I realise that starvation would result. Best not, then ...