Catching up

Strange how yesterday felt like a day out of time - despite the normality of choir practice in the evening, the rest of the day felt as if I was in a parallel life, with a different time zone running alongside the normal. So today was spent in a way making up for that. 

It began with a very slow and sleepy start, not helped by a drowsy-making antihistamine at bedtime alone with some ibuprofen to tackle a strangely swollen ankle (it's been sprained too often in the past, so swells up at the least opportunity.) I found waking almost impossible, despite the annoyance of daylight when I realised I'd forgotten to shut the curtains. I had breakfast so late that I was still washing up when the kettle was boiling for elevenses - and I still wasn't dressed.

We had an appointment at the builders after that, choosing the material which will be used to restore our front steps. There are 17 steps in all between the street and the door; I know this well because I used to drag the pram, complete with baby, up them all. (I broke a spring on the pram suspension doing this; I used to count them, grimly.) We were in fact later than we'd said because we met people; I pointed out to Himself that we must be turning into locals because so many people hail us in the street. It's rather nice, actually (except when you have to be somewhere.)

The afternoon was spent in post-prandial slumbers followed by some back-testing gardening. I weeded the pots on the patio, then filled up some new ones and planted seeds in them, finishing off by clearing up the scattered mess of earth and bits of weed. I also pottered along the lane to talk to my friends who are much more serious gardeners about the manner in which they keep their pots off the ground, but as usual the conversation rambled pleasantly and took much longer than I'd meant it to. Himself cut the grass and removed the slimy bits of wood onto which we've been stepping down from the shed for years; we need something new. Throughout the afternoon a blackbird sang its heart out from the tree in the lane.

All this left me with energy only for online Compline and and a sound sleep over the news, though not before I'd heard the chilling speculations about what Russia seems to be up to now. 

My photo really belonged to yesterday, but I needed to post about Sister Clare. This shows the end of the funeral I was at, as people began to drift from the grave-side in our own churchyard and gather in small groups. I think it gives a real sense of an old-fashioned country graveyard burial, with the trees just coming into leaf and the grass fresh from its first cut of the season and all around the graves of people we know.