Reflecting in a happy place

Today, rather predictably, has not contained much vigorous activity. We ate ridiculously late last night, so that the doziness that assailed me at 1am was suddenly dissipated by the 'ping' of my brain kicking in ... you know the rest. I actually spent much of the morning contacting NHS24 or being contacted by them, as The Extraction seems to have decided an incipient abscess would round things off nicely. A local dentist will contact me in the morning; in the meantime it's back on the painkillers and salty water mouthwash ...

All of which left me a tad exhausted in the afternoon. But I don't do well if I stay in all day, so it was with relief that we remembered we can now visit Benmore Gardens again and headed out not long before the close of play for today. This meant that I was able to suss out the procedure for both entry to the gardens (wear a mask while checking in) and having refreshments there, and that we were then able to have the gardens more or less to ourselves.

The paths are showing signs of low footfall - grass and rushes growing down the middle - but it was a joy to be there in that peaceful and scented space. I'm blipping the pond with its water-lilies in bloom; the black water is dotted with clumps of pond-weed and the whole effect is randomly beautiful. There are occasional signs warning you to keep a couple of metres apart from other people - rather amusing signs, showing a fat thistle between two figures, but apart from that and the occasional one-way sign it was possible to forget, for a while, that the plague stalks the world and half of it is ruled by lunatics and inadequates ...