Spring has Sprung

The woman came again with daffodils
She set a jar on the sill.
George Mackay Brown

Spring visited today for a taster of what we expect to have for real shortly. The downside was having to look out at the world through dirty windows; windows which should have been cleaned by someone, not I, but have obviously been missed. I will have to have a word with the management.

My cycling friends, usually so robust, have been falling foul lately to various ailments and so today I visited a friend laid up with a trapped nerve in her leg and we put the world to rights before I came home and in a rare burst of enthusiasm conjured up some luxury chocolate brownies and some suspect meringues.

I say luxury chocolate brownies but I do hope they taste as good cooked as did the raw mixture: well someone had to scrape the bowl, and his Lordship is off striding the hills.

With the rush of blood to my head over, I sat outside in the sun, minus a coat, and had my lunch while watching the frenzy of activity over the railings.

There were football games, some primitive form of rugby game, children off school for the break, cycling, mothers pushing prams , couple sitting on the grass with picnics and older couples doddering along eyeing me up as they went.

This lack of privacy disturbed me a bit when we first came to the Dower House, used as I was to seclusion behind eight foot high walls, but I can now ignore their stares.

I remember when this was the RIE, running past first thing in the morning and seeing the patients who smoked standing outside in their dressing gowns on the very balconies now above me.
This must be how I appear now to passers by, minus the smoking of course.
Strange how things have come full circle.