Scampering ...

I feel I've packed in quite a lot today - another lovely blue-sky day, though with rather more in the way of a westerly wind and with cloud moving over at teatime. It began with a fasting blood-test, mercifully on the first appointment of the surgery's day, as part of what seems to be an MOT on the part of my GP prompted by that day when I felt I had appendicitis (I didn't.) Having missed my leisurely mug of tea in bed, I then had to hasten through breakfast to be able to do Pilates without suffering unduly, though in fact today's session was pretty arduous and had us all huffing and puffing with our efforts.

Restored by a coffee in the garden, I then had to replenish the larder sufficiently to last us till I can face a proper shop, so it was off to the supermarket with a couple of bags, stopping off at the optician to pay an absurd amount of money for a couple of pairs of glasses (one replacing the varifocal lenses in my driving glasses, the other a new pair of computer/music reading specs to replace the ones with the soldered frame that won't withstand any work on it.) During my week away, I realised, Morrison's had added a whole lot more self-checkouts for "bigger loads", leaving only a tiny handful of manned checkouts at one end. Presumably this means fewer staff - I disapprove.

Lunch in the garden again was peaceful and lovely until our neighbours decided to stir things up with some 1970s pop of unrivalled banality. I think someone may have heard my comments, for they lowered the volume, though it may just have been because they couldn't hear each other talking. We went out later, largely because more people had rocked up on the other side of the hedge and were becoming more vocal by the glass ...

But in the end we won out, because we went to Benmore Gardens and they was almost empty, and fragrant in the warm air - there is a rhododendron bush with wonderfully scented foliage and there are several of them scattered among the trees. We ended up at the hide under the big tree, where I was rewarded by the sight of two little red squirrels doing acrobatics on the bird feeders - I suspect because their own feeding boxes were practically empty. There was also a bird which may have been a young female chaffinch, which sat just above me on the fence and eyeballed me, calmly. 

Blipping the more athletic of the squirrels dangling upside-down to feed, as well as an extra of last night's sky just before 1am, because it was such a perfect night and the sky didn't get dark at all. I think I probably post such a photo every year, so this is it for 2022!