a talkative burn

We have talked so much in the past day and a half. Funny, serious, impassioned, heart-broken talk. I feel I’ve know these good people for ages. And that is an enormous gift.

But this afternoon, Elinor and I got onto the subject of desserts, which none of us eat much anymore. Yes, jammy rolls and spotted dick were mentioned–get your minds out of the gutter–and I mentioned that banoffee pie sounded awful. Elinor’s face changed. O, no. It’s wonderful. You won’t want to eat anything else all day but it’s good.

Great Ooogly-Moogly, will I have to try this delicacy about which I have only read (Country Living UK mag) and heard (Love Actually)?

Yes, I think I shall. With lots of strong tea or coffee, preferably, to counteract the sugar crash that will come hard on the heels of the last mouthful.

I’m doing lots of journal writing on this trip, something I’m hoping to get back to. Blogging is all well and good but I don’t put my innermost thoughts here. That would be madness. But those thoughts do need some place to go, don’t they?

We visited a Tibetan Buddhist temple and compound this afternoon and it was beautiful and very odd. There was a lovely temple and wonderful gardens and I thought what a nice thing for Mother Grove, a kind of model of a spiritual community surrounding and supporting a temple.

Many thoughts.

Iron Age settlement with sheep, too. And a hillside full of meadowsweet blossom. God, what a smell.

And for those of you who know my fixation with elderberries, they are everywhere here. Still in blossom, not quite fruiting yet. I do love them, those wild thatches of healing green. Tomorrow a stone circle and meeting the guys and seeing La Laity again.

I wonder if there are midges in Dundee?