of photos..

Issues still not fully resolved but I miss you!  Writing a blog post is so much part of my daily routine that I find myself all at sea without it. As I drift around on my day I am on the lookout for something beautiful/funny/unusual/interesting/thought provoking, something I want to share with like-minded friends here. I like to think it keeps me alert, in a gently challening way. I love it when your comments make it a conversation rather than a monologue.

The swallows have fledged and the garden was full of them when I opened the back door this morning. I wonder what it is like to leave the dark warm nest and find yourself in the huge sky with sunlight on your wings and a dozen or more swallows weaving and wheeling around you with joyous cries. I must have watched them for fully five minutes, mouth agape (mine as well as theirs. Truly.)  It was the most beautiful start to the day.

Change is the nature of the beast, but when formats are changed it takes me a while to follow and I am finding it hard to upload  photos to the blog at present!

I am going to take a short blog break while I figure it out and I will be looking into movement on my back to basics fitness list.

What will you be focussing on this coming week?

Have a lovely weekend.

I feel as if I have been given my books back! And I so love my books.

Spoken Content by the name of Fiona on my iPhone  can read my books to me. She reads in a strange staccato manner, in a Scottish accent and makes many mistakes of pronunciation (now and then collapsing into gobbledygook) and does not always read the page she is supposed to read, but I forgive her as she lets me dip into books old and new and I have spent most of the day in the study taking books off the shelves more or less at random 'reading' snippets of this and that and absolutely loving her.


(Most of my readers will know I have Macular Degeneration. See under Simply Seeing..Or Not.)

..can be a real pleasure, althugh the first time I sat down at my table for a proper meal after my husband died I all but choked on it and couldn't eat it for crying. (Barry loved to cook and I absolutely loved being cooked for!)

Eating alone during Covid lockdowns was an awful experience I hope mever to repeat.

I sit down to my meals, and set an attractive table no matter how simple the food.. That's a big part of the pleasure for me. Napkins, flowers, candles - I really enjoy all that and it's only a minute of extra effort.

I am perfectly comfortable eating in restaurants on  my own. Again there is that pleasure of someone cooking for me and I like to discreetly people-watch. I had two favourite restaurants in Glasgow  which have both closed sadly. Betty's in York treat the solo diner particularly well, offering a good table and a newspaper. So nice.

But eating with family and friends is extra special now that it is not an everyday thing.

Perhaps if your life is busier than mine you will enjoy eating alone and having time to think? And really taste the food!


I am so grateful for the luxury of beautiful food.

..the machinations of the food industry gets easier and easier the more I learn.

Ultra processed foods are cheap, tasty, fast, easy and addictive. Even the savoury ones have sugar added. I have heard them called dysfunctional foods and I just don't want to go there. If I am tempted a look at the list of ingredients saves me!

I have some wonderful technology on my phome which will read a photograph of a page at a time of my cookbooks and am currently exploring A Table For Friends by Skye McAlpine (thank you Liz). I love her philosophy. Relaxed, generous and realistic. An inspiration for one of my favourite activities - eating with friends.

I want the lifeforce of growing things in my food.

As part of my studies as A Student Of Old Age I see that I get energy from clean air and deep breathing, from drinking lots of water and taking cold showers, and from getting enough quaity sleep (need to do some work on this).

Next on the list (see here) is energy and we get most of it from food. A huge subject, isn't it. I eat a pretty healthy diet and a craving for sugar is the only thing that can be a problem for me I would  say.  However, I am focussing on filling up with the good stuff before even thinking of the not-so-good, which works quite well for me as I really do like good food! I am increasing my intake of fruits and vegetables, and buying the best quality I can afford.

What works for you? Do you notice your energy levels vary when you eat a certain way?

Look at the wonderful life force/energy in this beautiful flower!

A little omelette made with a splash of water for extra lightness, with sliced strawberries and a dusting of icing sugar eaten outside in the sunshine makes a lovely breakfast treat.

Can you make them out?

Simply worth the trip to see this first work alone!

The Elizabeth Blackadder exhibition at the Scottish Gallery is to e seen in person if at all possible. The paintings have a life of their own which cannot be conveyed in reproduction.

Lunch at the National Gallery with friends then  a visit to the above made for a great day  out today.

It took twelve hours, five buses, two ferries, one train and one car to do it, so I should sleep soundly tonight!

Erratic. For now I think I have accepted that my sleep is erratic. I probably get on average 7 hours a night and I guess that is ok.

What I do well is nap!  I resisted for a long time as I thought it might be counterproductive - ie if I had a nap in the afternoon I would sleep less at night, but this doesn't seem to be the case so I have cultivated The Art Of The Nap.
That's the title of a lovely little book which makes a convincing case for the wisdom of the nap and with delightful photographs...

I am especially good at napping in the hammock. Guilt free somehow, as it seems like a perfectly sensible thing to doo on a hot day.

Do you drink lots of water? I have  been drinking 5 or 6 glasses of water a day for over a week. How come I can forget for weeks at a time what a difference it makes to the way I feel and to my energy levels?
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Blessed with abundant clean water to drink and to bathe in, I always wash my hair in cold water, often start the day with a cold shower and sometimes take a cold bath. The most invigorating thing I do! Ever.


Signing up for a monthly donation to Water Aid.

Is it selfish to be paying so much attention to my own health? These kinds of thoughts do come into our heads, don't they?

I came across a really good question in a health questionnaire (and you know I like a good question).

Who else will benefit if your health improves?

My first thought was my children, as they may not have to look after me when I am old. Then I thought everyone benefits. Not only will the people around me be less anxious and worried, but I wouldn't be a burden on the state and the wonderful NHS. And I will be more able to help others who need it. The thinking behind free travel for older people was that older people who can get out and about and be fit and active will save the country vast amounts of money.

So, I will absolve myself of any feelings of guilt about focussing on my own fitness for the month (or what is left of it. August is racing by).

Having got that out of the way, the next essential for my body is water.

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I am trying to be grateful for the amount that has fallen from the sky this past week.

It is still summer, as evidenced by the cornflowers. And today was unexpectedly beautiful.

That we do breath is a given :-) but how we breath is quite important we are told.

I have been doing Wim Hof's breathing exercises for years now, nost often first thing in the morning as a kind of meditation and energiser. It seems to waken up both body and brain.

I sometimes use it before something I'm a bit nervous about (injections in my eye) or before a social occasion  I am stressing about (recent funeral). I find it deeply calming, and of course you need no equipment or special clothing and can discreetly do it anywhere.

It's exercise I can honestly say I enjoy!

....which sadly cannot be taken for granted.

One thing I know. Fresh air never came out of an aerosol can, or something plugged into the wall or hung on the mirror in a car, or from anything that can be bought in a supermarket!

I am lucky to live on a sea loch with a forest behind me. For fresh air I open a window, which I do almost every morning when I wake.

I do my best to avoid polluting the air in my home with unnecessary sprays and polishes and chemicals.

If you live in a city, how do you ensure your body gets the clean air it needs?

Eric Edmeades, who created Wildfit, claims there are eight needs of the human body -

air
water
sleep
energy
movement
sunlight
non energy nutrients
touch

I think it will be interesting to consider how my own needs are or are not being met..

Did anyone else watch Yuja Wang on tonight's Prom from the Albert Hall? Mind blowing! And the outfit! Wow,

..of a cappuccino is the chocolate on the top.

I am focussing for the rest of August on Simply Eat and Simply Fitter. You will have heard of rewilding the landscape, but have you heard of the idea of rewilding your body? A friend said it conjured up an image of us with matted hair, weilding clubs, but it is more about eating and moving the way nature intended and I am intruiged by that concept..

The first of the meadow areas has been cut and all the cuttings raked off. This is important to reduce the fertility or the rank grasses would take over from the wild flowers. It will soon green up again. When I walk through the still long grass in the back garden little flocks of birds rise up out of it. Lovely!

..a bowl of cherries. Abundant fruit and vegetables are making me think a lot about what I am eating and dtinkihg, and whether I am having enough of the good stuff.

If I can fill up on the good stuff, I will want less of the bad stuff....yes?

My laptop was on a Go Slow last night and refused fto do what it was told!

Am trying to fix it.

Hope you have time for some bird watching today..

..in my old age?

(Yesterday I went to a beautiful 90th birthday party.)

Iin no particular order I  want

intellectual stimulus
the company of intelligent friends
family time
good health
and to be useful.

Wht would you add to the list?

I don;t want the only pan for my old age to be the funeral plan!

I glanced up from my morning coffee to see this enormous heart-shaped cloud rising up from the forest like a birthday balloon! It made me laugh out loud, and run for my camera.

I have ordered five anemone September Charm and three agapanthus Navy Blue to extend the season in the bed which is mainly ox-eye daisies.

A day's work in the garden is balm for the soul to me.

I am so grateful for the sheer beauty of it all. The tiniest things like the tangle of tendrils from sweet peas  with a gorgeous cosmos in a small glass delights me.

The peace and prettiness on a sunny morning just had to be enjoyed. It would be churlish not to appreciate it to the full. My friend, an artist who loved beuty and the natural world, would expect no less than for us to keep going, and he would want no more than for us to be happy. He would know that those of us who are left behind will take care of each other.

..beauty sustains me.

As do your thoughtful and kind comments. Thank you.

What sustans you in times of loss and sorrow?