August at home

August is the teachers' holiday month. It's the opportunity to visit family and friends in other locations. Most years, our feet don't touch the ground in August.

But this year we walked St Cuthbert's way at the end of July and I squeezed in a visit to my ancient dad in Cornwall, then I got grounded. 

A steroid injection into my creaky hip meant I had to take it easy and avoid exercise. 

And what a pleasure it has been. 

I ticked off little domestic tasks from taking up a pair of trousers and mending a bracelet, to making chutney and jam.

There were also treats like Chip's barbecue-cum-solar-eclipse, and like having Rosie round and catching up with Carol and Carole.

And then we were able to be fully present for two major life events: the funeral of our lovely friend, Nick, and the much anticipated wedding of wonderful Steve and Elaine, at both of which Nigel gave a speech and for each of which there was time to prepare and debrief properly. 

Only thing we really missed was our summer visit to Pascoe in Edinburgh, but we'll catch him later.

Maybe I'll need an injection in my hip next August too.

Home is where the Frog Is

 

As I leave the car, I often go back and peer in through the window.  I am checking the handbrake.  It is always on.  I set off down the pavement again.  After a few paces, I take the key controls from my pocket, point them at the car, press the ‘locked’ symbol.  The car flashes to me that it was already locked.

After eighteen months of working at home (and in fact doing everything else at home too!), I am unused to going out anywhere much and I react to the strangeness by over-checking the car. 

As I’ve already said, getting away on holiday was especially momentous in a year when there were so many obstacles.  We were so fortunate to get away for a week, but it felt weird. It was hard to leave the house and garden with which we have become so much more intimately involved.

But the flipside of this is that homecoming means so much more.  We exclaimed at the fresh blooms on the rudbeckia, the tomatoes reddening in the greenhouse and the young squabs in the dovecote.  at the birdfeeders were the fluffy offspring of bluetits’ and coaltits’ second broods.

But once the car was unpacked, the thing I most wanted to do was to sit beside our little pond.  A gang of the most miniature new froglets were hopping about while a larger one skulked patiently amongst the waterlilies, waiting for a passing fly.

‘Ah!’ I called to Nigel, ‘Home is where the frog is.’