And then it rained ...

I was disciplined today about getting up. I've been more and more ... retired about it recently; today I woke after a confused and disturbing dream and was less attracted by my bed than I usually am first thing. As a result I was in the supermarket by 8.20, which is about the earliest sensible time to avoid the bits they've not yet restocked. Despite the prevailing sense of being in a strange supermarket, I am beginning to have hope that when the refurbishment is finished it may be a rather pleasanter experience than before - but I feel stupid that having to go round a different way to find what I want makes me forget essentials. Like blueberries ... And I couldn't help noticing sizeable price reductions on some things I was buying. Interesting.

After breakfast I had another look at Sunday's sermon, had coffee, and turned my mind to pruning the azaleas in the front garden, which have sprouted madly since we had the tricuspidaria reduced from tree to shrub. I found myself competing for a smallish space with the window cleaner and his ladder - I didn't know he was there until I walked out into said ladder. The pruning was hard work - a lot of overhead reaching with the long-handled loppers - and by the time I'd finished my already sore back was complaining horribly.

We had lunch in the garden despite desultory spits of rain, sitting there till Himself went off to practise the organ. This left me carless, so friend Di offered to come round to walk in my neck of the woods - which is exactly where this blip comes from: the woodland path around the former reservoir in the Bishop's Glen. It's hard to get really close to the water there, as it's muddy and the bank is a bit fragmented, but I actually love the dark green reflections contrasting with the vibrant colour of the foreground. Because it was warm, I was wearing a thin windproof over a T shirt - nothing at all waterproof. As we were coming down the far side of the upper glen the heavens opened, and though we did lurk under a variety of trees for a bit the rain became so fierce they weren't really working as protection and we gave up. By the time I got home I was, quite literally, soaked to the skin. What a chilly state that is!

Back has been screaming a bit all evening, with pain also manifesting itself in the front of my lower abdomen and making me very grumpy. Can't take any more Ibuprofen for a bit - I suffered from having taken it for three consecutive nights. This increasing decrepitude is, as a friend from Alabama likes to say, "a pain in the patoot"!

By the way, my window cleaner is 70 and still sklimming up ladders. Good, eh?