A treat ...

I'm clearly having a Shakespeare resurgence in my psyche. When I was thinking about how I might celebrate my birthday this week, the expression "maimèd rites" kept creeping in - words used by Hamlet to describe the miserable funeral accorded to Ophelia because she had committed suicide. It's a wonderfully powerful scene, so I'm not surprised that it lurks there in my sub-conscious, but I'm happy to say that I didn't in the end feel let down by my celebrations.

Au contraire, I've just had the most lovely day. Our original invitation from my #2 son had been for lunch that he would cook (and he's a fabulous cook), but I was born too late in the month for the current pandemic upsurge and we had to think again. The main blip here shows the splendid alternative, served by The Shore on The Shore in Leith - so very different from anything I'd dream up as to constitute the most enormous treat. (It's sea bass with choux gnocchi, beetroot purée, beef salsa and mange-tout peas, and it was cooked to perfection.) I had a delicious pudding, and I had champagne. Mr PB had to do without the champagne, but we both had the pleasure of several hours with Ewan, and some fascinating conversation.

Afterwards, we walked back to his home round the docks in Leith; my extra photo is of one of the local swans in that incredibly picturesque area. I had an extra walk because Ewan's doing a charity walk-per-day thing and needed the distance; Mr PB opted for a snooze in the car (we were being very rule-conscious!). I came away with a bottle of my favourite champagne (de Castellane), a necklace of pebbles from Binic, in Brittany, two conkers (don't ask) and a wonderful pop-up card made by my youngest grandchild.  

The only fly in the otherwise perfect ointment was the traffic as we set off for home. An hour after leaving Newhaven, we still hadn't left the city; I think there was an accident along our route and we had to do a lot of jinking about. But it was a glorious evening as we crossed on the ferry to Dunoon, with little sign of the efforts being made to clear a pod of whales out of the Gare Loch. I read a tweet from Scottish CND suggesting all 5 of the whales should be made members immediately...

Just a lovely day. And thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes!