Omnibus edition.

How in the hell did it get to be Wednesday and no blogs for a whole week?

I'm going to have to be selective and take you on a journey of highlights of the last week.

Saturday we went to Gullane but it wasn't great because I had a hangover. I used to be good at drinking but I've gone off the boil through lack of practise. On Thursday I bought a bottle of wine as much as a treat for Peter as for me. It was a bottle of red called Hedonist that had a pig on the label. It was delightful. I had 2 whole glasses and was steaming. On Friday I felt a bit ropey and ended up doing some of the tidying and rearranging furniture that I've been threatening to do for ages. I stirred up a lot of dust and felt pretty grim by evening time. Another 2 glasses of Hedonist were needed just to get me back on an even keel.
By Saturday I felt liverish and flat.
Peter was on his usual campaign to find and photograph butterflies. I had minimal tolerance for standing around. In the interests of brevity I'm going to skip it.

On Sunday, after nothing to drink on Saturday night, I felt a bit better and we headed for the Lammermuirs. My lungs are still a bit ropey after a cold I had a few weeks ago, so it was hard going to start with. It is, anyway, in the Lammermuirs, as it's pretty much 4 miles up straight out the car.
Peter had it in his head that there should be snakes and then was disappointed when there weren't any.

I didn't stop to take photos until we were higher up. The heather was particularly lovely, and the skies were impressive. Oops. Despite my promise of brevity there's quite a few photos.

Looking for snakes. Complaining about snakes.

I went an ordinary kind of run on sore legs on Monday, feeling glad that the next day was going to be a cycling day and therefore restful.
"Pshaw!" as they used to exclaim in 19th Century novels.

We set off kind of late yesterday so my spirits were slumping before we even started. P had it fixed in his head that we should cycle to Dunbar and onwards to...somewhere...Dingly Dell...Hazel Dean - oh no, she was a singer in the 80s. You'd have to ask Peter, I was just following orders.

The last bit before the...Woodhall Dean...that's it!...the last bit was a series of very steep and unwelcome hills. I'm regretting not having a granny ring on my bike. My legs were a bit tired before but afterwards they were as if someone had torn them open and taken the stuffing out. All floppy.
And we were just arriving at Dingly Dell. And night was closing down on us in his dark coach.
Well not yet. But it was kind of late.
My lungs were scratchy. The oaky, spooky woodlands were charming and it seemed churlish to complain just because I had sore lungs and heat-stroke and I was dehydrated and my legs had gone floppy and it was past my bed-time and I was more than 40 miles from home.

Peter "enchanted"

There were times I felt we were being watched though.

Peter - "They're not interested in you!" Yeah, right.

 

It wisnae me.

Then we cycled back to Dunbar and I went on strike as Peter pushed for us to cycle back to North Berwick. We got the train home from Dunbar and very civilised it was too, except for the other people. A horrible lady with a pink bag pushed her way in front of me and my bike as we were coming in to Waverley and I was getting ready to carry my bike off the train. She must have been wanting me to hit her in the head but I didn't give her the satisfaction. It had been a tiring day and the children were glad to eat tea and go to bed.