All At Sea

As I sat on the loo this morning gazing out of the picture window over the greensward spreading into the distance, a huge clamour of rooks swept past not 50 feet away. What a sight it was! I had to look up the collective noun for rooks, and I'm fairly sure this was not a murder of crows. I often linger on the loo because the view is so good, and there is nobody to see me. The blind almost never gets closed at night, and even with the light on in the bathroom I never feel as if I'm being watched. The very first time I saw inside the house, with Kitty to distract the owners while I looked around freely, she said she would spend all her time on the bathroom windowsill in a blissful state. It's a great place to look out from, with the window just two feet above the floor level. I've always hated bathrooms with opaque glass unless they're seriously overlooked. What's the problem?

It was such a gorgeous day that I decided to take a walk by the sea in the morning in case the weather changed. Everywhere was frosty and white, the grass sticking up in petrified clumps and the pond frozen and hoary. I wrapped up well and chose Sizewell beach for my stomp. But I had forgotten that I was wearing a long-sleeved thermal undershirt. With the sun blazing down and no wind, within half an hour I was steaming. Off came the hat, the scarf and the gloves, but still I sweltered. Silly me, I should have remembered to remove the wretched thing. Still, it was lovely walking along the waterline, the hard sand mostly revealed but disappearing every now and again as the tide rushed in and surprised me. It's easy to feel young and skittish at the seaside. I found a concrete block and sat for a long time gazing out to sea, and was rewarded by the sight of a seal swimming along towards Southwold just 50 or so feet out from the shore. It was going slightly against the tide, but every time it disappeared to swim underwater it emerged several yards further along, so it made good headway. I felt ridiculously pleased to have seen it.

Back home I finished my painting of windowsills, and settled down with my CAB file for some serious revision. I'm going on THE course in Norwich on Monday, and after that I'll be seeing clients on my own. Now that is scary!