I spent hours on this glorious beach today. We had a picnic, we paddled, I contemplated a swim but decided it was too early in the season: there were warm bits of water where the tide had come in over the warm sand, but elsewhere it was perishing. All afternoon a cuckoo called (a major third, if you're interested, slightly flat at first but bang in tune as it warmed to its song) and an invisible skylark gave it laldy over our heads.
I don't remember being so aware of all this birdsong in past years. I've never listened to a cuckoo for so long that I thought it sounded like a boy scout. I've never felt so strongly the power of the trees bursting into leaf - today I was sure the trees on the homeward drive had come into full leaf while we'd been on the beach. And then I realised that for most of my life I've been stuck in school while all this was going on - all these mornings when I've longed not to turn up Bencorrum Brae to the grammar school but instead to keep driving - out past the Holy Loch, into the glens and fields. No wonder I felt stir crazy for all these years at work.
The car thermometer read 28ยบ when we returned to it at 5pm. I had sand between my toes and a pink nose. I heard today that pensioners are the worst hit in the current round of inflation, but today I felt rich.
A rich pensioner, in shorts.
What a glorious experience, indeed! The vast expanse of water...the endless grains of sand..the abundance of seashells at your feet. These are the riches of this earth..that when we stand still long enough to see, we suddenly are aware that riches have nothing to do with money nor wealth, but our ability to understand......
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