Pottering about the countryside

I have had a strange week. I tell myself that weeks like this are unusual, although I do seem to have a few of them. I left home at 6.00 am on Monday to travel by train (the only efficient form of travel if you actually want to achieve anything while you move) for Thurso on Scotland's north coast. It is a long slow journey - a colleague made the train journey from Paris to Edinburgh as quickly the week before - but does give an opportunity for uninterrupted work. The view is also pretty good although frustrating as I travel along the rivers Tay, Helmsdale and Thurso all populated by fishermen as I tap at laptop keys. I went there to see people in connection with an excellent project with which we are involved at work. I met them, I slept in a friendly hotel and then I left Thurso on on the 6.50 am train on Tuesday to return to Edinburgh - another eight uninterrupted hours with the exception of polite chat with fellow travellers who were on their way to Berwick upon Tweed. I was jealous. I visited the office. I made a fleeting appearance in the office on Wednesday morning and then went out to clients. I went from that client to Perthshire where I joined a Scottish Wildlife Trust field trip to The Hermitage, had dinner, slept in a friendly hotel and then left Pitlochry at 6.00 am on Thursday to meet clients in Livingston. I went to the School Sports. I have been in the office all day to day and then I went home (via the pub!). It has felt, although has probably not been, shambolic!

Entertaining?

For the first time since "the Bobs" (as our builders were predictably christened by us despite all their names being Andy) left we had people for dinner last night. Our guests were drawn from what I think pass for the usual sources - work, university, parents from school. We had been to one couple's house for dinner recently and she had cooked fantastically so a degree of pressure to perform was being felt. While a back street driver on these occasions I enjoy the rituals of feeding people - finding and polishing silver; choosing drink; the hopeless hunt for muslin culminating in the decanting of port through a pair of tights; buying good cheese; rushing home; carefully washing such good things as we have afterwards; putting everything away through the morning haze of hangover (and yes I have the inevitable wholesomeness of the school coffee morning to cope with).

While I enjoy all that, the best bit is having people here, some of them people we used to see every week and now see all too rarely, and laughing. I can't at this point remember where the conversation went (it will come back and I'll cringe later) - I just know that, as it always does in this house, it descended rapidly. My broad philosophical approach to entertaining (if its sensible to have such a thing) is to put people in a place where they can have fun generally involving the consumption of drink, but then expect them to return the favour by doing so. We had a great time last night - good guests, who can come again.

The Edge of Summer

Today has been warm and this evening balmy. I drove home with the car roof down, it was still just light at 10.00 o'clock, the air smells of cut grass and one of our neighbours had a party in their garden. It feels like the front edge of summer.

I like the way the seasons change and am as happy with the move through autumn to winter, with its short days and dark journeys home (Edinburgh is a city particularly well adapted to those sorts of days), as I am with the lengthening days of late spring and summer. It is the variety I like and, by the time we have had one season, I am ready for the next one. I particularly like the front edge of each season, when the change is obvious and the new season fresh and ahead of us. Summer holidays are pending (not that I've got the length of booking mine), the parks are full of cheerful lunchtime refugees from hot offices and sports days, school concerts and doubtless exams fill the minds of children. It is too easy to wish time away - Friday beckoning on Monday, July holidays beckoning in June. I should try to shed sufficient busyness to enjoy time for its own sake.