The clouds and mist are back, which is nice for the new plants but a bit dreary for everyone else. I feel distinctly short changed given the Met Office 10% chance of rain prediction. I suppose someone locally has to be in the 10%, but I tend to the view that it should most certainly not be me. I never did have a grasp of statistics (nor, it would seem, after this mornings lecture from No. 1 son, physics). Hey ho.
Resolving to make the best of a bad job we have all dutifully turned to various outstanding chores. Keith has ferried Lachlan to Eyemouth for his first Covid Jag, Lyra tagging along for the road trip with a promise of fish and chips and a run on the beach. Mum has hit the laundry and I have amassed a number of tedious admin jobs. Thus far I have made it through one – the commencement of which was delayed by a suddenly burning need to water the greenhouse, sow some herb seeds and take a few extra cuttings (the first batch went extremely well this year!). My interim tax bill was next on the list. This, obviously, has been delayed by urgent blogging. The latest knitting project and the last three hours of my latest audio book are waiting in the wings to delay this year’s tax data collection request, which I have been studiously ignoring for a few days. I also find myself rather regretting the vat of rhubarb trifle made recently, which is getting in the way of me convincing myself that I just have to make a cake. Clearly my moral fibre goes a bit soggy in damp weather.
Cue extended pause for tea.
Much to my shame, I am now completing this report over 24 hours later and the tax bill remains on the table unpaid. The sun came out again yesterday afternoon and what soggy shards of moral fibre I had mustered quite evaporated in the heat. I spent the rest of yesterday afternoon sitting in the sun knitting with the birds, bees and the last chapter of Natasha Pulley’s The Watchmaker of Filigree Street (an absolutely delightful novel which worked very well as an audiobook). The evening saw us all carousing over at Georgefield.
Today was glorious and therefore not a chore day. I floated around dead heading roses. The rain yesterday had weighted down the large yellow ones which were clustering on the lawn. The best of these droopers were picked and duly arranged and the remaining petals were hoofed upstairs for drying. The smell in the garret is now so intense mum thought she might pass out when she ventured up there for a book! The climbers are in full swing now and I am especially pleased with the little seedling from the Rambling Rector which has matured into a lovely and vigorous pink number (working name the Rambling Curate).
In between forays with the snippers I hit the knitting needles with gusto and tuned in to a new audio book. I am now working through the Shetland crime series by Anne Cleeves as there’s nothing quite like a windlashed frozen corpse on a sunny day to make one feel at one with the world.
Live from Ruthven 