Woke after a restful night in a soft fluffy bed, and without even a hangover thanks to careful restraint with the unique whisky given by the Loudons.
The threatened snow has continued to evade me (Yay!), but today was the perfect epitome of the guid Scots term 'dreich'. The steady, slow rain lasted all the day, so even Johnny and Jan decided to forego their daily 3 mile walk, for which I felt grateful, albeit a little guilty. A healthy breakfast with lashings of coffee easily salved my conscience though, and later on Johnny's homemade French onion soup completed the job. The hours passed comfortably in conversation, with memories of corporal punishment in our old school, then university and hospital junior post days, weddings, Delta Force trips in UK and abroad, and tributes to our dear departed members. We commiserated with each other over our persistently annoying loss of memory, especially for names. We needed recourse to Mr Google or Ms Alexa to check who the guy is who hosts a chat show every week with the Big Red Chair (no, it's not Jonathan Ross, it's the other one, you know, the Irish one... etc, etc...). And we shared a new useful word, er, what was it again? Oh yes, TARTLE, that was it: look it up for yourself, for next time we meet in the street!
Johnny and I spent much of our formative years, in the 60s at least, sharing music. He was a skilled guitarist and good singer and, often along with his older brother Jimmy, we needed little encouragement to perform our repertoire, mostly folk songs and Beatles music. Today his guitars and banjo stood idle in his study, but unlike in times long past we didn’t play together. Sadly, due to impaired hearing he no longer finds playing the pleasurable experience it used to be. Another example of how the unavoidable changes in our aging bodies shape our experience of life.
C’est la vie. And so our joyful reunion passed, until I realised I should leave to get back to Camp in daylight, which I did by 6pm. I had stupidly failed to close fully the sliding cupboard door, and when I stopped for fuel I found most of my traveling library scattered randomly over the cab. Duh! Quick tidy up to make everything safe, and more thorough rearrangement when I got back to Moretonhall, and plugged into the mains. I had called the camp earlier and checked both that the power was restored, and the Stable Bar open, where I am now writing this, after another bowl of soup (not as good as Johnny's).
So the second week of my Great Spring Escape comes to an end: many more adventures to come once we've got this next weekend's rugby settled. 🏴🇮🇹
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