A grand day out...

...and no chance of a snooze.

We left home at 8.30am and got home again at 5.30pm. We departed in hot sunshine. We returned in cool torrential rain.

First the car was in for its annual Warrant of Fitness (WOF), which it passed smoothly.

At the vets' I popped Beanio onto the scales and discovered that she has put on 1.8kg in the last six days, which is wonderful news, but not entirely surprising because it is likely the weight she lost when she had diarrhoea. 

She now needs to put on another 4kg, which is probably going to be slower until her heart problem can be addressed. I have arranged to see E the vet next Thursday to get that next step sorted out.

On the way back through town I dropped off some library books and collected a few more, before we stopped for elevenses of tea and biccies with some elderly friends. 

It is bitter-sweet sitting with them because A has advancing dementia of some sort, which her husband K seems to be in denial about. So we all pretend that there is nothing at all odd about conversations stopping - or starting - mid-sentence. And it is perfectly normal to sit in confused silence for minutes at a time. I feel so sad for them both: each one struggling with diminished mental agility in their own way.

From there we headed off to have lunch with Marian in her riverside woodland cottage, which is one of Bean's favourite places to visit. Marian and I ate food from her garden while Bean snoozed under a blanket on the sofa. No wonder she loves it there: it is a home from home.

And our final stop was to see FFL at his crib on the Moeraki Peninsula, which gave me the opportunity to take this Blip yet again. We sat and chatted about life in general; retirement, fishing, gardening and cooking in particular. 

What a day of unusual sociability. I'm tired out and will need silence for days.