The best medicine

The garden is very green and the plants are thriving in all this rain, though as I predicted the paeonies are getting sodden. It actually didn't rain today but it's grey and frankly rather chilly. I feel so guilty about all the soggy tourists who probably didn't come to Scotland to get a tan but who wouldn't have expected such consistently dreich weather.

Mum's been in hospital for over four weeks now. I go to see her twice a day so have notched up about sixty visits. The nurses (and I imagine the doctors as well, but I don't see them so much) are really lovely: young girls who spend their lives among these patients, a lot of whom have bald heads and are on drips and with catheters... not a job I would want, and they're so kind and helpful and sympathetic.

But it's so healing to come away and see Grandson busily crawling about and picking things up and trying to fit rings over poles and generally being so - new.