Softly does it

I was up earlier than usual this morning - following an unusual excess of alcohol last night. I did that thing of crashing out early, sleeping like the dead, then being wide awake at an improbably hour, unable to get back to sleep. In our defence, this was the firts time we had been out to dine at the pub since the week tat we moved in here, without furniture or cooking facilities for a week. That was 8 years ago. We're not wastrels by nature but we did sink a few last night, alongside three courses of pub nosh :-)

We did feel that we had earned the treat this weekend. Lots of work got done and we both felt tired, thirsty and hungry.

The rubbish was at the gate by 7am, all five bags of it. I took three trips. The morning was very still and the old midges were on the wing - I suffered a number of bites, mostly on my foot. These are now driving me mad.

The sun was bright and hot and when I hung my laundry out (before breakfast) the Rosa rugosa were smelling strongly sweet in the unusual warmth. Rosas are the only thing that we have planted with any measure of success in what passes for our garden. Basically we can grow all the garden thugs here, I think, but they keep in check in a manner not known to the non-Orkney horticulturalist. Our Rosas have been in for six years and are only now clearing the top of the dyke. We may need to prune this year!

We shall be eating "light" today - neither of us feels hungry. I'm going to griddle an aubergine and serve it up on couscous with a spicy tomato sauce, I think. Maybe with a wodge of the bread that is about to go in the oven. (And it's not even 10am yet!)

I set the Soft focus effect on the Nikon before I went out to look at the flowers. It seemed to fit with my softly, softly approach to the day in general.

Laundry done, bread done, lunch in hand, rubbish out, Blip done. Whatever am I going to do for the remainder of the day? Well, actually, I am going to put all our games and jigsaws back into the pine chest that they came out of in order to move it up to my room, sew a matinee jacket together, and then sort out some photographs for this year's Show entry. If there is time left over, I may do some more washing, blocking, end-sewing and Show entry planning of various knitting projects.

It's all go, innit?