Glorious

It is a glorious Autumn morning. The sky is a soft, cloudless blue and the sun is shining, however there is a slight chill in the air which highlights the change of season. The leaves are beginning to fall and the grass in the back garden has a sprinkling of pears which have fallen from the trees. Autumn was my Mum's favourite season so it's appropriate it is such a beautiful day on her birthday. She would have been 86 today and I miss her.
We had a fantastic weekend at Alison and Hugh's. They are now living full time in Boat of Garten until they decide where to live permanently, and it was great to see them. The weather was mixed but that didn't hold us back from enjoying ourselves! Alison and I went swimming on Saturday morning while Hugh took Hermes to the vet. He recently had an unfortunate and violent encounter with an unidentified member of the local wildlife, and was badly bitten and bruised, however I'm glad to say that he is responding well to antibiotics. He is very sleepy as he recovers. Oscar was in good form though, and he was hilarious as he made it clear that he didn't want me to sit on "his" couch! If a stern look wasn't enough to make me move, he got down disappointedly from the couch and then tried the other couches, none of which were quite right, and then came back to his preferred place of relaxation and looked up at me very reproachfully until I took the hint. He has such expressive amber eyes and of course I obeyed him! 

In the afternoon we went for a jaunt to Elgin where we visited the delightful (and very expensive!) Johnston's of Elgin which is famous for its cashmere. After a good browse around, James treated me to a gorgeous cardigan in a natural stone colour - it's so soft! We had coffee and cake in their pleasant tearoom before heading back. Dinner was at our favourite - Anderson's restaurant - and as usual the food was delicious. I was very glad of the walk back to the cottage to help me to digest the copious amount of food that I had consumed. 
Sunday was a lot brighter and we decided to go for a walk near Kingussie. We were so lucky because we could see rain clouds on the hills nearby but apart from the briefest of showers we remained dry. After labouring up 300 metres to a lovely viewpoint I decided to retrace my steps while the others went on a longer circuit. I thoroughly enjoyed striding downwards through the heather until I stepped into a hole and went flying through the air. I managed to twist my ankle and was very glad of my walking poles (which James had insisted I use) as I hobbled down the hill. I am so clumsy. Not long after I got back to Ruthven Barracks, where the car was parked, the others arrived and we headed back to Boat of Garten for a coffee before James and I set off southwards. When we got home I felt the need for a large donner kebab. I enjoyed scoffing it but as usual I soon regretted it due to my delicate digestive system. 

Health and well-being

I'm back! My last post was written at the end of our fantastic holiday to New Zealand. Since then I have been going through a rather unsettling period of change. I don't mean that something terrible has happened; in fact the opposite! I can't blog about it in detail because it's confidential which of course means that it's work related, but basically I had to say no to going back to school to cover part of a timetable after my retirement, because the conditions did not suit me at all. And it's not easy for me to say no!

But my life has much more in it than work, and at the moment I'm concentrating on improving my health and fitness. A healthy mind in a healthy body and all that!

So I have been swimming - a lot! At least three times a week. It's interesting watching all the different people who use my local swimming pool during week days. There is a usually a group of about ten male pensioners who occupy the shallow end and occasionally use the sauna or sit on the chairs beside the pool. They are in truly terrible shape with gigantic tummies. What is remarkable about them is that they do absolutely no swimming or exercise at all. I presume that their doctors have ordered them to go to the swimming pool but have not made it clear that they need to swim once they get there! The female pensioners are much more conscientious. They dutifully swim up and down the pool, as do I. The faster swimmers are very serious with swim caps and goggles, and they lash up and down the lanes until these are changed into an area for school pupils to get lessons. The pupils are very noisy but it's nice to see them enjoying the water. The young swimming teachers are very grim and shouty though, I was watching one of them and she didn't crack a smile the whole time. 

Imagine my surprise on Wednesday when the class that came in for a lesson was from the school I left a year ago! I swam over to say hello and one of the pupils immediately said "Mrs S Anderson - born on New Year's Eve!" These are my people! I set up those swim sessions years ago and used to go with them every week - it felt a bit strange not being part of it any more. Then when I was getting changed in one of the cubicle I heard a couple of the teachers talking about me - they didn't know that I was still in the changing area. Luckily they sounded quite affectionate about me!