I to the hills ...

Lifting my eyes to the hills was about it for today, after our exertions yesterday - though I have to say that had I been on one of our walking holidays such as we should have been starting this weekend we'd have been out for three days in a row. Today, however, was dominated by the arrival of the weekly shopping, the washing of vegetables and wiping of tins and packaging, the blether with the shopping angel in the garden under a slight and unexpected drizzle. That and the fact that I couldn't face fitting in bread making before breakfast meant that I made scones for lunch ...

Sunk, perhaps, by said scones, we made a torpid start to the afternoon, getting out only after 4pm to walk one of our default routes down the Bullwood road and home by the back of the town, under the slope of the surrounding hillside. As we headed back down Mary Street, the sun came out, giving me my blip for today. The street is quiet, filled only by - in Philip Larkin's words - the smells of different dinners. Someone has just lit a fire near the top of the road - you can see the smoke drifting across against the dark of the hillside. That is the hillside across which we were climbing yesterday; our route then was taking us towards to horizon on the left, behind the trees.

It's so strange and yet so familiar. I have to remind myself that despite the apparent normality of our daily lives (apart from having our shopping brought, and having to wash it all!) nothing is as it was. Lifting my eyes to the hills is every bit as helpful as anything else I can do to restore equilibrium - except, of course, walking among them...

Extra photo, if it loads, is a composite of flowers - two from my own garden; the mixed azaleas spotted in someone else's.