From my hammock

P set up the hammock after lunch, between two tall pine trees, and spent some of the early afternoon there. I didn't climb into it until after six, by which time the hot and humid afternoon was turning into a warm, mellow evening. It felt perfect. I just lay and breathed, gazing up at the pattern of branches and the moving clouds. I didn't want that time to end. I had been feeling overwhelmed by things to do, sort out and worry about, and needed that pause. I reluctantly climbed out to water the tomatoes and get back to J, and wept with nostalgia for our laughter as we tested hammocks in the wonderful canalside shop in Amsterdam, wondering if we'll ever manage to do anything like that again, and for happy times with J and the cats in the hammock in our former garden. Today, when P got it out, she said it wasn't fair. She laughed, but she meant it. We will need a hoist system to get her into the hammock now, and accommodation with a hoist, or a car big enough to transport one, if we are to go on any kind of holiday again. None of these things are impossible to organise of course, but they will take time and resources; it was all so much simpler when I could just lift her out of her wheelchair.

I wrote about the hammock last summer, with a colourful photo just like the one I might have shared today.