Catching up

I've felt I was scampering for much of the day, unlikely though that may be at my age and feeling as creaky as I have been this week. I started very slowly because neither of us could settle to sleep and I at least heard the clock strike 2am - I think we may have been cold. So one of the first things I did when I saw the sun rise into a perfectly clear sky was strip the bed (I got out of it first) and put all the bedclothes on to wash, hanging them out between making a loaf for lunch (or putting it in its machine!) and having breakfast. Then I hauled out the winter duvet from its compression sack and aired it for several hours and remembered I'd wanted to make some soup for lunch because there was the end of a sweetheart cabbage in the fridge - it wouldn't have been very sweet had I left it any longer. It ended up as a bean and bacon soup with cabbage added and was rather tasty. Meanwhile the day had turned grey and dank and there was little chance that the sheets would dry any more, so they had to come in for shots in the tumble drier and then be draped around until they were ready for the linen chest ...

Lunch was latish because Himself had gone to practise the organ in church, so I had little time to rest before going out to Di's as arranged for a walk with one of the dogs she's currently minding - she'd taken the others out earlier. We didn't go far - just a couple of miles - because we were both feeling half dead and had sore hips (one apiece), but I did manage to get a worthy photo up the high road behind Blairmore, where the village stops and the forest begins. It's an interesting place where large walls tumble down and mysterious people repair them, where old and decrepit-looking houses suddenly get a facelift and new occupants, where one-time gardens become jungles. It leads to a much longer walk which we call "going round the block" - a circular route through the forest and above the golf course in a great loop back to the shore at Strone. 

Once home I had one more thing to do before we ate: the bed needed made up. Out came another load of clean bedding; up came Himself to assist with the bed-making. (Actually we always fight over one person smugly fitting his corners and not leaving enough of the fitted bottom sheet for the other to get onto the mattress, as well as about the best way to put on a king-sized duvet cover...). And then we were free to cook, to eat, to attend Compline, to collapse over another episode of Das Boot. 

And we still haven't quite finalised our arrangements for our upcoming visit to Edinburgh - to work, this time, not to holiday. Tomorrow is another day (and the only one left to get it all done...)