Busy is best

I really do best when I'm properly busy - best in my head, best in terms of cheerfulness.Today was great, not only because summer seemed to have returned with a will, but also because I barely had time to think about anything outside the moment. 

It began, as Mondays do, with my Pilates class; there was much talk about the fire, revelations about how the arsonists were indeed local and so on, but also hilarity as we grunted so much that our teacher said we sounded like the men's class. Home from that, I had time for a quick coffee, a wrestle with the scanner (why it needs updated every time the system software updates is a mystery - can't it just ... do it?) so that I could print copies of some of my old teaching notes. Lunch had to be speedy, and consisted only of a piece of buttered toast and a handful of grapes ...

And then I was off again, collected by my erstwhile shopping angel to go out to a cafe for a session on Critical Essay writing. The Blairmore Cafe was opened after the closure of the cafe at Benmore Gardens, by the people who lost that franchise, and very excellent it is. By this time the sun was out, I was full of tea after lunch, and it seemed appropriate to drink something totally untypical and a bit mad. This took the form of a frappé created to my specification, including oat milk, coffee and salted caramel syrup ...(Shush. Don't say it.) Over this, I hammered away at the basic requirements of a good critical essay (think spider plans, colour-coded main features, explicit opening paragraphs ...) until the conversation moved on to what would best be done to education in Scotland. Then we chucked the folders back into the car and went for a walk along the shore of Loch Long, talking all the way.

Back home, I found Himself sitting outside but contemplating going for a quick walk before dinner ... and I couldn't resist joining him.That's where my photo comes from, at the far end of the Ardyne where the rose bay willow herb is bursting into its fluffy seed heads in the foreground and the south end of Bute lies beyond the big sandbanks exposed by the very low tide. A skein of Canada Geese has just flown overhead, honking creakily, and everything is very still. It is almost 7pm and dinner is going to be insanely late.

It was, and that is largely the reason that I'm still here, blipping away at almost 12.30. I've been standing in the front garden looking at the wonderful moon and what might be Jupiter, or maybe Saturn, very bright to the west of the moon. It's totally still and quiet, as if everyone has gone to bed. They probably have. I'd better follow suit ...