Birthday today, party tomorrow

HH’s birthday today, but the celebrations are on hold till tomorrow. We had a quiet day at home, catching up with our tails, HH on the computer, me gardening and chasing the gardener and generally trying to get things shipshape. The dogs lost out – no walk today or yesterday.

Used contact cement on the back of a picture in the morning and spent the rest of the day trying to peel it off my fingers before a 6 pm manicure. Not to mention trying to get the earth out from under my nails …

After the manicure, having parked at the beginning of a road in which we once owned some land, decided to drive up there for the first time in years. It still comes to a dead end, but goes much further up the hill now and there are some large properties on either side, and even a condominium. It brought back memories – our plot was at the top of a hill and there was no road up to where we intended to build (we had wild thoughts of building a ski lift). At the time, I was rehearsing (am dram) for the part of Viola, aka Cesario, and we were enchanted to find an old man who showed us all round the plot – and went by the name of Cesario. He was wonderful, and gamely accompanied us up hill and down dale. He’s probably long dead by now, but I remember him fondly.

Heading home in the dark, I stopped to raid a clump of wild ginger at the side of the road. As I stepped in close, my right foot sank into something very wet, but I persisted and arrived home happily with the sweet-smelling bunch in the picture. Ginger always reminds me of the island of Kauai, in Hawaii – more precious memories.