Normal busy

Sometimes I feel we slip from one life to another without really noticing, and today's re-entry to routine came before I was properly geared up for it. Mainly, I think, it was the stiffness of two-hour car journeys and more sitting around than I'm used to, with perhaps the added joy of muscles somewhat abused in my attack on the garden last week. Whatever it was, Pilates this morning was at once a joy and a complete pain in the literal sense of the word, and it took me an age to master the balancing that I did almost without noticing all winter. And there are several back-stretching moves that are utterly beyond me. At least my half-hour with my coffee between my lesson and my returning to fetch Himself from his class felt totally justified.

I found myself dropping off after lunch and was goaded not to by the sunshine outside, so when Di replied to a text with the thought that we might go for a walk I was well up for it. A slight delay caused by having to have Himself change the battery in my car key and I was off, joining Di and about a hundred Edinburgh school children in grubby red outdoor-centre-issue waterproof tops and trousers in Benmore Gardens. We worked out that they would all just have arrived to stay in the Benmore Centre (in the old mansion) so were having an orientation tour - we kept meeting rustling groups of them. I was reminded of when I borrowed a set of these ultra-heavy-duty waterproofs for a demo at the USN Holy Loch base in my role as vice-chair of Dunoon CND; there was snow on the ground on the day itself and we must have looked a right scruffy bunch as we chatted to a bloke in a suave-looking sheepskin coat and Burberry tartan scarf who we reckoned must've been Special Branch. Or something. It was almost 40 years ago, but these red macs fairly bring it back ...

The gardens were utterly lovely. The magnolias are out, and some of the rhododendrons, and the leaves are at the stage of looking like green foam. There were blackbirds singing, and Great Tits. Best of all, there were two red squirrels scampering about in the area of the hide - it's been so bleak without them all winter. Today's photo is from an unusual (for me) side of the lake, with a lone bunch of daffodils still flowering in the foreground. Much clearing has taken place on the ground, but later in the year the water will be hidden from this end. 

Tomorrow I have painting class and choir. Normal busy is resumed.