Where has the time gone?

Sooo sorry - it's been such a long time since I've blogged.

We went on holiday to Barra and Vatersay at the end of May and had a week of endless sunshine and beaches. Wonderful walks to look at ancient stones, a different beach every day to entertain Maisie and a lovely cottage to stay in.

When we were booking our cottage I could hear the sounds of an accordion playing in the background - 'Oh, that's only Donny practising', said Helen and it all just got nicer and nicer from there. Helen rang us up the week before we were due to arrive to ask if there was anything she could get in for us and to reiterate that there were plenty of old towels to dry off the dog after our walks. Relaxed and welcoming or what?

When we arrived she was waiting by the cottage and she'd put a bottle of wine in the fridge because we hadn't asked her to get anything in.  She brought us a pot of cooked crab claw meat the next day as well.

We walked every day from mid morning to mid afternoon and discovered old hill forts, the remains of Neolithic houses, beautiful beaches, lovely flowers on the machair and friendly people everywhere. Maisie was the happiest dog in the world and we collected pretty stripy stones (cobbles of gneiss), gnarly shapes of dried seaweed and great pictures where ever we looked.

Even the 5 hour ferry journey between the island and Oban was reasonably untraumatic. The weather was calm so no sea-sickness for m'dear husband. Maisie slept in the car during the journey and seemed perfectly happy when we returned to her - no little accidents! And we saw dolphins!

On returning home the weather was still happy and sunny thank goodness, because I was involved in a community event in the local park the next weekend. The sun shone, people had a good time, local groups did well with their fund-raising stalls and nobody complained. Result!

Then it started to rain. It has been cloudy and rainy interspersed with hammering it down ever since the 7th of June. The grass and weeds were shooting up in the garden and all I could do was look at them through a rain-smeared window and feel inadequate - up until this weekend! Hooray! I got out in the garden and at last planted the perennials which have been getting pot-bound in the greenhouse. I did some much needed weeding and m'dear husband mowed the grass.

Thank goodness - order and peace of mind has been restored. I was beginning to feel dangerously redundant/remiss/useless/old.