OK, I admit it

I'm cold. I'm cold. I'm cold. My feet are always cold. Of course, my feet have always been cold pretty much wherever I have lived, but these are some very cold feet. I've never had that good core-warming summer that my inner time clock expects in July and August. Of course, I had it in December and January, so likely my internal thermostat is wigging out on me, as the rest of my innards tend to do from time to time. I think the crocuses that have just come up in the garden are feeling the same way, though. No sooner do they poke their heads up than they start to droop, never really fully bloom. It's cold. It's cold. It's cold.

I have the right clothes. And would probably stay warm if I would just wear them. But somehow putting on a silk thermal layer in August just seems so wrong. And silk-lined, 2-layer wool socks don't even bear thinking about in August. It's a mental problem rather than a temperature problem. Though I did not have any urge to put on wool socks in Hawaii in December, so there may be a glitch in my logic. Fancy that.

That said, the end of our time here is approaching and while I feel my thought processes shifting time zones, the rest of me is loathe to leave this sweet little corner of the world and re-enter reality, despite my cold feet. Our 180 days is almost up, time to start packing up for our next stop, though I'll be leaving the silk long johns here for future use next August. I'll figure it out eventually.

Whoosh

That is the sound of summer in the Highlands. It goes that fast. If you blink, you just might miss it. There have been flashes of brilliance, blue sky, puffy clouds, possibly even 70 degrees. A temperature that has the locals out in shorts, flip flops, and short sleeves and children swimming in the North Sea. Though I am usually still in long sleeves and my wool blend socks. And if you are lucky, you might get two days of that in a row. This, of course, will be followed by rain and/or wind. And partially to blame for the rapid return of wet weather will have been me having decided to hang laundry on the line. There is a big golf tournament here this week and I think I should do the whole bunch of them a favor and do no laundry this week at all. Works for me. :-)

But here it is only the first week in August, and one of the trees in the backyard is starting to turn. We walked home in near dark from a party night before last, and it was only 10:15!! The baby seagulls are almost done screeching outside my window. And our friendly blackbirds have moved on. The ferns are starting to turn orange as well. But the hardest thing to swallow about the summer drawing to an end is that the train tickets for our date of departure came available and arrived in the mail last week. It's a much better deal to buy them in advance, so I did, but I immediately stuck them in a drawer so I can ignore them for a bit longer, though the tree in the backyard is a bit harder to ignore.

No melancholy this time, though. We're set for next year, all things working out, will spend 3 months close to the kids, then on to Hawaii, and then back here. Home again, home again.