Green thoughts ...

Where does it come from - "a green thought in a green shade"? I wrote that, and had to look. It's Andrew Marvell, from his poem The Garden:
Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less, 
Withdraws into its happiness; 
The mind, that ocean where each kind 
Does straight its own resemblance find, 
Yet it creates, transcending these, 
Far other worlds, and other seas; 
Annihilating all that’s made 
To a green thought in a green shade. 


Anyway, here are some green thoughts tonight, inspired not by the lovely green hillside of Benmore Gardens but by the springing support of the community on this platform. Over the last couple of weeks, because I began feeling so low with the tooth malarkey, I've found new encouragement from what for the most part are people I only know through Blipfoto. (I only know two of my regular followers in real life: Feorlean, whom I know not only as my MSP but also personally and whose blips inspired me to sign up because I wanted to comment on them, and Elspeth, whom I met after meeting on here. It was her encouragement last evening that had me contact both my GP and then my dentist this morning, with the result that I think I'm actually going to see either my own dentist or his wife, also in the practice, tomorrow morning. I've been feeling quite listless all weekend, and the lump on my gum having returned despite draining on Friday I feel some further intervention is needed.

It's a strange thing, how suddenly one can feel the need of external support, even when in a small town where one knows so many people. So thank you for sympathy and affirmation - it's great community and one of my first online ports of call.

Life does, however, go on, sort of. I did some of my Pilates class this morning but missed the tough floor exercises (my excuse was that I was phoned back by the dentist's surgery). I chatted online to my pal over coffee, and on text to my granddaughter who is enjoying her usual French summer holiday, with the family, in her other grandmother's house. (She'd been learning to sail a catamaran in the sea off Brittany in a brisk northerly wind and seemed to have had a whale of a time). I fell asleep like an old lady after lunch, but later we dragged ourselves out to Benmore Gardens and felt better of it.

I wasn't taking photos of them today, but the red squirrels in the Gardens really were the most wonderful entertainment today. There was one vibrant red, so red that I announced that I was going to ask my hairdresser to replicate it... Do you think Squirrel Red would catch on? 

Posting an extra of the village of Sandbank as we drove through on our way home. I know it was teatime, but we've been aware that even though we're told Scotland is getting back to normal, the streets seem desperately empty. Even Dunoon town centre was very quiet this morning. I wonder if there's anywhere really looking as it used to - in Scotland, in England, in California? 

All a bit disaster movie-ish, don't you think?