Pottering ...

Today has felt quite busy - so much so that I've not had time to feel much (Do I hear a sigh of relief?) With the weekly shop arriving at the same time as my gardener turning up to cut the grass, I felt like the lady of the manor for a while, standing outside my house in a fine drizzle overseeing my staff - I could get used to it if it weren't so bizarre and so obviously a function of age and perceived decrepitude. By the time we'd washed vegetables and wiped jars and stashed everything away we were gasping for coffee; I spent some time after that making a file of photos I intend to use as part of a YouTube video and then it was well past the proper lunchtime.

By then the sun had appeared and the fish had arrived - our wonderful fish man from Inveraray has re-opened his rounds with the van, though it'll be next week till he's in Dunoon; in the meanwhile my pal in Blairmore had got some for me. This provided an excuse for us to drive round there and have  a walk along the shore road at the entrance to Loch Long, entertained as we walked by the movements of a submarine with attendant tug. I took the Blip from just beyond Blairmore pier; it's not a Trident sub, and it looked as if it was trying something out before setting off, about an hour later, to sail purposefully off down the Firth. 

Further on, as we approached Gairletter, I saw a huge bird swoop over the road ahead of us and down towards the shore: my first ever Osprey. I was half hoping for sight of one, as there have been posts on the local wildlife Facebook page about ospreys near the Holy Loch - I'm not enough of an ornithologist just to recognise one out of the blue! A satisfying moment, that.

Then it was home to cook the (fantastic) fish, eat it, and attend an online service for the Ascension. It wasn't till 9pm that I was able to collapse on the sofa; I mustn't spoil things now by staying up too late ...

...But before I go, I'm posting an extra photo of a flame-coloured azalea. It never really does terribly well; nearly every year it seems to be overtaken by drought or something and half of the buds don't develop into flowers. It currently sits just outside my front windows, but it has history. It was the very first plant we ever bought as a couple, heading out to a nursery to the north of Glasgow to do this frightfully adult thing, and planting it in the minuscule garden in front of our ground-floor flat in Hyndland. When we left for Dunoon, we dug it up and took it with us, first to the garden of a council house in Kirn, owned by the Education department, and then to the house we now live in. It's still spindly, and I fear its flowers may not survived the weekend winds, but this is its moment of glory.