trimmingthesails

Stepping out ...

I would like to say "Stepping out in style", but our back views belie any semblance of elegance. Mind you, our concentration was focused on just staying upright. In the many years since we'd last visited the gardens, we'd all forgotton just how tunnelled, stepped and generally tricky the meandering paths were, especially for those approaching four score years and ten ...

Immediately afterwards, we delicately negotiated a dark and winding uphill tunnel to emerge, blinking, onto the bright veranda of the pagoda; and Himself snapped us as we crossed the bridge, quietly triumphant ...

That's just how life is right now: difficult terrain, small victories, with occasional dollops of borrowed Olympian strength - and a good memory with which to greet another Monday! And, I'm wondering, what's helping you as you begin this week? Wishing you well ...

A midweek mélange ...

... of meditative musings:

• a waft of gratitude to Ali Edwards for her 27th Creative Lift this week, and the heart-lifting reminder in her first paragraph that if we chastise ourselves for not having enough creative energy, it might be because we are investing it in something we might not have considered creative at all - but is. 

• a frisson of amusement when Boden's autumn catalogue plopped onto the doormat. It features - wait for it - an Alexa dress. Whaddya think? Yes? No?

• a moment of illumination when scanning the new term's classes in the local Adult Education brochure: I could take an 'Award in Door Supervision, Level 2'. No wonder we could never keep the darn things closed when the children were small - we'd never been trained!

• a rush of excitment when I clicked the PayPal icon for Alisa Burke's new class Ode to Nature in August after being seduced by the video: barefoot seashore roaming (Note to self: move to coast and buy tripod), skimming through the water (NB borrow canoe), and trekking through the undergrowth (Memo: locate neighbourhood jungle).

• a sigh of relief when Jen Louden gave us permission to 'copy consciously': a camping magazine at the dentists' (don't you just love waiting rooms?) has provided the inspiration for a layout design to capture my weekend's photos and memories

•  and a sign of relaxation as we settle into the warmest evening of the year: it's dark outside and still 19.5C (66.5F). Whoo-hoo! Now, where's that Martini (and mask to protect us from the midge fest)? :)

Adventuring ...

Remember the series of adventure stories by Enid Blyton? The Island of Adventure, the Sea of Adventure, the Castle of Adventure ... How, when the children got measles or 'flu, they'd all be packed off to some distant relative at the seaside to recuperate? And inevitably, it would be full of danger, with nary an adult in sight. Ah, those were the days!

Sometimes, only the sea will do. And so we went west, all of us, for a weekend. We stayed in a prettily coloured house looking out onto the strand ...


Round by the harbour, we trod the boards of the weathered pier stretching out into the estuary ...

Underneath it hung a bell, cleverly positioned, whose metal tongue clappered in warning across the bay, as the water rose and the tide came in ...


The canoes, later in the day, provided much entertainment as the youngsters practised flipping under the water and righting themselves ...

I couldn't resist hunkering down to look at the textures up close ...


Himself let me snap him after a long clifftop climb ...

And I returned the favour at the start of an inland wooded trek ...


And, of course, there were reflective walks along the wet sands as dusk settled across the shore ...


It was our own kind of adventure; we have recuperated a little, laughed a little, and had a chance to knit ourselves back together a little. Next adventure? Choosing a design for the scrapbook pages. You can see we live really dangerously up here!

Fishinspirational ...

"Hmm," said Himself. "Smoked mackerel kedgeree ...". He didn't actually add the three little dots, but I distinctly heard them. I'm sure he would have carried on with "That's an interesting choice for someone who's been a vegetarian for thirty years" if I hadn't got in first.
"Scrapbooking", I replied, a trifle indistinctly. There's only so much clarity you can get with a mouthful of, well, trifle.
"Ahhh!" he said, and pointed to the open page, with an enquiring look.

"Not recipes. Design." A bit muffled still, but I was savouring the sherry-soaked crumby bit at the bottom of the dish. That's about as far as our nine-word exchange went, before he did. And my nine for you? Angled photo strip, two types of journalling, dotted outlines:

OK, so I couldn't quite bring myself to leave the photo-strip on the slant. I'm putting it down to straight-line-itis, though it may be a twinge of determination to prove Himself wrong. Just in case that tenth and parting word, floating behind him, was indeed 'Tipsy' ...

See you later in the week?
(I might have finished hiccuping by then ...)