Looking for peace ...

After a day filled with irritations, we escaped to Benmore Gardens when we should have been getting dinner. Minor things, like Mr PB's not having all the ingredients for the curry he was cooking and having to go for them, like the sudden realisation that I'm doing the intercessions on Sunday and needed to think about them; worrying things like my not being able to find one of the dresses I wore on last year's cruise; major things like the car (again) ...

And *that's* a sorry tale. We've already had to wait several days for our car to come back to us when its electrics died in the middle of its MOT; no sooner was that completed when the council decided to resurface the roads in the horrid way that has them dig holes (RAMP. RAISED IRONWORK) then fill them in with chips (20MPH. SKID RISK) then tar (NO ROAD MARKINGS. 20MPH). Twice our car wheels began to grind horribly (stone(s) caught in braked discs); Twice we stopped to look. Then we noticed the air-con was off again ... And it was hot.

On Wednesday we learned that a chip had punctured the air-con unit; it was empty of gas again. Today the car went in at 8.30am for a replacement part, and at 5.30pm it was still up on the ramp, with bits off it, because the replacement unit had been damaged when it arrived at our garage. So now we're back to the courtesy car we had the last time - a 2003 grey Skoda with no aircon at all. 

Reader, I coped - but that's why at 6.30pm, the saga over for the weekend, we found ourselves back at the bridge over the River Eachaig in the evening light. We walked for an hour; a pale red squirrel crossed our path and vanished up a tall tree while another did a little dance along a rope slung at its feeding place while a small blue-tit did its best to eat its body-weight in peanuts...

I felt better after that ...