Gleams of colour

I've said several times on here - with increasing fervour, it must be admitted - that I find the early mornings hard in terms of summoning up enthusiasm for life these days. So I need to say now that today my early morning tea was lightened by a WhatsApp video chat with my older granddaughter, whose 13th birthday it was. She (and Mousse, her cat) had me giggling into my morning tea as we talked nonsense; I sometimes feel I have a residual juvenile streak that came in handy when I was teaching teens ...

The rest of the morning wasn't bad either - we had a hymn recording session up at the church, and I didn't fluff anything and felt quite pleased with my singing. We had lunch in the garden, though what on earth possessed me to make extremely spicy lentil and cabbage soup (a fridge-bottom job) in this warm weather eludes me. We had a phone call from #1 son: would we fancy a sail on PS Waverley next week? For anyone reading this from foreign parts, Waverley is the oldest sea-going paddle steamer in the world, and after a disastrous season with breakdowns (was it two years ago now?) she had her boiler replaced, aided by massive fund-raising and a £1million grant from the Scottish government. We are huge fans, and an all-day sail in the company of our son sounded simply too good to miss. 

All this took time, so it was quite late when we got out for a walk, heading north for a change to walk by the sea (well - on the shore of Loch Long) at Blairmore. Blipping the last garden in the village as the road heads towards Gairletter and Ardentinny, becoming single-track and rather more precarious for pedestrians at going-home-for-tea time. I wonder if living so far out of town means that people spend more time on their gardens; this one certainly was a sudden burst of colour that amazed in the  uprightness of these blooms so close to the sea.

It is here that I confess I was pretty irritable by the time we were walking. I think there's an element of frustration when the freedoms permitted by our own (Edinburgh) government are not equally greeted by us all. I think I'm much more equable when I can be involved in a variety of activities and certainly with a variety of people, and get utterly frustrated when circumstances look like restricting me even when the rules don't.

I'm very relieved to read the same kind of thoughts from fellow-blippers these days. Dangerous business, being a diarist ...