Glorious Sunshine?

All week, we've been promised glorious sunshine for two whole days. I've been nursing a bit of a cold all week and on Friday and Saturday, my legs felt like lead, so I went to bed early, and slept great, until 5am when stomach cramps woke me. I didn't feel like running but my laundry basket was grateful anyway.

So, Saturday, stomach cramps wake me at 5am.  I don't feel up to working out so instead, I do two loads of washing, wet wipe the washing line, (again... I did it in Spring but it's now been rained on so much and not used, that it needs doing again,) and proudly, amidst the chilly air and wetter than wet morning dew, hang out my washing ready for the brilliant sunshine that we have been promised all week... this weekend.

I pegged each laundered piece out one by one, two pegs each, lovingly, in readiness for the sunshine. I still had time on my hands and so I commenced ironing before heading out for coffee.

It's a little busy here in Starbucks this Saturday morning, (I've just realised that Starbucks should be paying me some kind of commission for all of these mentions.)  It's a little frenetic, quite busy and bustling, the music is a little intrusive, I should embrace it, it's lovely, but I'm feeling a little more silk pyjamas and eye mask today.  I put on a little CBR, (Corrine Bailey Rae,) but I'd have to have her blasting in my eardrums to muffle out the din so the background noise is.... still in the background.


The good news is, I got home again, in time to take the washing in before the rain started.  Yep, so much for glorious sunshine.  Washing was just as damp as when I hung it out, three hours earlier.

After wrestling in the damp washing and finding somewhere to hang it, indoors, I ironed a little then B arrived to pick me up and we headed for Ness Gardens at noon. 

We parked up just as a coach load were unloading and heading into the main building.  I tell B that I'm making a break for it and I overtake the pensioners heading into the cafeteria, sounds mean but trust me, we'd have been there all day if we'd let the pensioners get seated before us.  B has lasagne and I had bacon, cranberry and brie on wholemeal before we head off into the gardens.

Neither of us are particularly bursting with energy today and so we sit on pretty much every other bench that we come across, (there are many dedicated benches in Ness, thank goodness, really useful for a day like today.)

It's a nice day, not glorious sunshine, I have my jacket on the whole time we're walking around, that includes inclines,  but it's still clement and we spy families and blue dragonfly's and busy bees and so much pond weed, I swear I could have walked across it was so thick.  It's so peaceful though, no matter how many coach loads, and always calming, we have to do this next time you're home.

Towards the end, in the plant sale, a lady with a basket over her arm and cutting shears in her hands asks if we belong to the coach party.  Do we look like we belong to the coach party????

I don't sleep well on Sunday night as usual, Monday morning, as I swoop around the bend of my close, heading out, the old man with the dog is on the footpath by the side of the road, he has already stopped as he always does in the wake of a car and he's waving at me before I even clap eyes on him.  I wave and beam him a smile. 

Work goes well, I appear to be super charged for some reason, be it, luck, skill or fluke, but I achieve just over two days worth of stats in a day on Monday, it's a great start to the week.

Tuesday I maintain my lead.  Wednesday, I'm just closing the garage door at 5.25am, when I hear, "Morning Darling!"  Scares me half to death but as I turn around, it's old man with the dog.  I say "Morning!"  All bright and breezy while I wait for my heart to stop beating quite so quickly, but I carry on closing the garage door and he carries on walking.  By the time I turn to get into the car, he's walked far away but is now shouting and waving at me from a distance.  I can't hear or understand a word because I'm next to the running engine of the car, and he has no teeth.  He could be saying... "I'll kill you tomorrow, ok?"  And I'm waving and smiling at him.  He's not really, I'm sure he's lovely but I haven't a clue what he's just told me.

Wednesday and I've increased my stats lead.  This isn't actually a good thing.  We always argue about how difficult it is to get our stats and it is... I'm not actually sure what's happened this week, but I'm flying.  I honestly feel like I'm on a production line though, and I'm bored.  My craft has been honed.  I'm churning out eloquent and lawful letters fit to go before a judge, and I could do it with my eyes closed, half asleep, with one hand tied behind my back, whilst I recite the alphabet backwards.  I long for a challenging, creative task.

Wednesday evening and I'm usually in bed by now reading as there is nothing on TV.  It's just before 7pm and a kid hammers with a fist, so hard on my front door, that the door almost flies open.  As usual with these "knock and run" kids, they have fled the scene before I have got to the kitchen window.  I remember being a kid, I even remember doing "knock and run" once, and only once, well it wasn't actually me, it was a group I was with.  But I don't remember hammering hard enough to give someone a heart attack.  I do remember why they hide like cowards though, it's because they know they have done wrong.  And while the enraged lion in me wants to stride to the top of the drive and no doubt spot them cowering, waiting for my reaction, I quietly count to ten and hum a tune in my head until the anger subsides.

My Mum was always hot tempered, as am I, (we're fire signs, Aries and Leo, so you can like it or lump it.)  In her later years, I pleaded with her not to answer the door or to go outside when antagonised, not because she couldn't handle herself, but because these days, a) you never know how things will escalate and b) someone has to be the grown up.  Although it kills me not to scare the bejeezus into the little.... darlings, I am choosing to be the grown up.

Forty minutes have passed and I haven't had another pounding of the front door, maybe my... taking the higher ground, actually worked.