In my garden

It's been a fairly quiet day. I finally finished unpacking (!) from my holiday. Then I went to Hexham Abbey for the funeral of a friend from the Photo Club. D died suddenly last week. He knew he was time limited by a nasty rare cancer that had quietly developed in his chest cavity, but he had recently been given hope of surviving a couple of years with chemo.

It was one of those occasions where the regular rector was away and the presiding minister had not known D. He was very sombre even when pronouncing what should have been glorious certainties for the believers. The stand-in organist played at top speed, even for "Make me a Challenge of Your Peace". Uncomfortable and disconcerting even before you consider the way that funerals confront us with our own mortality.

Later I did watch some splendid British sporting victories today and I'm still trying to understand the rules that relegated the Chinese cyclists from gold to silver.......

This all left me wandering blipless in the garden this evening, enjoying the heady perfume from the philadelphus. Here is one head of our eryngium against an enlarged image of the florets of an astilbe. Not sure what D would think but he did like quirky images.