Not usual ...

This was a strange day in terms of how the morning panned out: I had resolved to do my weekly shop before breakfast so that I can fit in a Pilates class tomorrow to make up for missing Monday's, so was in Morrison's at 8.30am (note to self: bad day as far as stock availability goes - I had to buy a cook-in-the-bag chicken because the only normal ones were pterodactyl sized). When I'd lugged the insane quantity of stuff into the house, I went straight down the road on foot to see if the optician had any free time to check out my eye and was told it'd have to be tomorrow. I was in only long enough to have a nice long chat with #1 son, out walking his dog, when the optician phoned to say come back in ten minutes - they'd had a cancellation. [What kind of person cancels with fifteen minutes to spare?] So it was straight back to the shop for an examination (drops, lights etc) from which I returned just before 11am. See what hadn't happened yet? Right. Breakfast. So today I really did have breakfast running straight into elevenses which we finished at almost lunchtime ...

Miraculously, given that we only found the slate in the gutter above the kitchen yesterday, the roofer turned up and fixed it and another missing slate at the front that we hadn't known about. He's such a star ...

My Italian practice was so late I'd lost my early bird points; lunch was  a very small bit of toast and half an apple. And then we went out. By this time it was sunny again after a cloudy spell and we drove to Loch Striven for a lovely walk along past the fuel base (no ship in, so no fumes/noise) between hedges glistening with ripe brambles (really - the hedge faces south) and amber-coloured bracken. There were clusters of insanely noisy oyster-catchers and gulls, and moments of profound silence. The photo is looking into the grounds of the fuel depot, where last year they harvested all the conifers and left these insanely tall, thin birches towering up towards a beautiful sky.

I picked a small collection of brambles. We ate them, poached in gin and added to some strawberries. Made a splendid pudding. 

And then Compline, quiet and lovely. And since then, I've slept so soundly I could barely waken to come upstairs. Daft, really ...