Better than Paris?

I think the weather today was better than in Paris - the rain we had yesterday seems to have taken itself off for a wee French holiday and today, though showery, was actually rather pleasant by the time I was ready to go out in it. Not that I was ready early - I fell asleep again when I was supposed to be getting up, and had a vivid and perfectly credible dream that I've now lost. I was still doing my Italian come coffee-time, when the travel agent rang my phone instead of Himself's because I'd only given it to her yesterday. 

While Himself settled down to make a batch of chickpea dahl, I went off upstairs and tackled the shameful bourach of our returning home last week. The sharp-eyed will have clocked that we've been home just over a week, and I have to confess that the great plastic compression sacks of bedding were till today still lying all over the spare bedroom where we dumped them within fifteen minutes of arriving. So I embarked on the exhausting business of stripping covers off duvets and the bed and the pillows and then rolling up a winter duvet, manhandling (womanhandling doesn't sound right) it into a compression sack and then lying on top of it to drive out the air through the valve because I was too idle to fetch the vacuum cleaner. However, all the sheets are now neatly in the laundry basket waiting till tomorrow and a chance to hang them out.

Exhausted by all this, I had lunch, then transcribed a possible poem from the back of an envelope, then wrote a prayer for the vestry meeting on Monday (I'd just remembered volunteering). Then I abandoned everything and went to meet Di at Benmore Gardens, where we had a lovely walk, much of it in sunshine, through the gardens that as usual we had to ourselves except for a family we met on our way down. Today's photo was taken on a fairly recent hillside path that Himself doesn't like coming down because it hurts his knee; I have to confess mine was screaming a bit by the bottom of the hill, but it's a lovely path with lovely views. 

I've just watched a big chunk of the Paris Olympics rain-fest. Quite extraordinary, but even allowing for the disappointment of the terrible rain I wonder if a stadium doesn't give a better spectacle? On the screen, special effects are mostly reduced to the status of CGI, and the sound is never as electrifying, as anyone who has sung out of doors will know. I loved the faceless leaping torch-bearer and the Montgolfier-type balloon and the river horse-ride (though it went on too long) but ... but ... 

Enough. I'm tired enough to have done all that leaping about myself. Time for bed...