Sunday stories. ..

Rain returns after a very warm, humid and mostly sunny weekend, when shorts and t-shirts were optimal for comfort and Sun tanning. A brief walk in the rain proved yet again that skin is a semi-permeable organ, covering the skeleton and inside organs and associated pieces of pipe and things to keep them safe inside, with openings for food and drink to enter, and exit later, plus stuff better not mentioned in polite society involving the messy business of reproduction.

Since the rain persists, it's time to write this ... (please find your own rhyming word for this) ... the creative mind decides to spend more time writing and reading than wandering about talking (see above) to random strangers and friends. Sure enough, Babe the little dog turned up with Malcolm, his human, an old friend living up the hill in Crawleyside. We talked about how wet we were and laughed about how remiss to ... have left the waterproof gear behind! Never mind, talking too much is a problem usually solved indoors, though the internal dialogue persists like the rain ... and blogs don't write themselves, nor do books read themselves ... and now a book entitled "Why The World Does Not Exist" has almost fallen off the shelf by itself, and demands to be read, starting today, before lunch and U.K. Column News on the internet at 1pm.

Yesterday was shorts and sandals weather for the trip to Hexham and friend, with Daisy still nearly full with fuel, and keen to burn it. The company at the Bandstand, The Tribe, was fascinating as usual ... some old friends, some new ... deep discussions ensued, the way they tend to do, and listening to understand rather than listening to take your turn to speak, improves the quality of the discourse no end. Over the road at the Beaumont, a table for eight is reserved at 1pm, meaning an hour for deeper discourse with Marta and Jaqui, two very deep women, plus Bill the wisest of the whole group in my opinion, and not because he lives intentionally homeless and cares little for the illusion of money and likes to split the Bill for the rest with another one who feels the same ... but because he says very little but listens intently, before offering an opinion.  And, obviously, the question of measuring how much each person must pay no longer arises, and everyone throws money onto the table or not, and guess what? As if by magic, there's a surplus for the waitress.

Waitrose comes next, since it's nearly 1, and shopping is required, including the row of freezers mostly empty by order of those running the Scamdemic panic, because they can. Who cares? There's plenty of food in the hedges and woods anyway, and the next stop for Daisy her passenger and driver, is at Lynne's house, for tea and conversation for the two women, while I have a lovely walk in the Sun along lanes lunching on blackberries and finding two strangers to amuse, before returning to finish the now cold tea and drive Daisy and friend home to Stanhope again ... where a new friend, recently moved into the village from South Wales via Austria, appears to talk for a while in the Sun. His story, however, must wait for another day. Now then, where's that book?