I am so desperate to go to sleep that I do not think this is going to last very long.
I am in a little bed, once again in the Elgin Travelodge, and Lucy is in the shower. It is half past one in the morning and I am longing and longing to sleep. Lucy has been up since four, and apart from a half-hearted snooze on the way here she has also been awake for a very long time.
It is now the Longest Day, and although the day that has just finished was not the Longest Day, it jolly well felt like it. Yesterday was Midsummer Eve, and Mark’s birthday. Poor Mark is off on an oil rig and so had very limited celebration, although I am pleased to say that Lucy and I have done that on his behalf, so he can consider that he has been saved the trouble.
We celebrated Midsummer Eve with a walk along Burghead beach in the almost-sunset, which was a glorious, magical twilight at about eleven o’clock. We had just arrived at that point, and thought that we ought to do something suitably pagan and midsummer-magical, so we dumped the car and went for a walk. This worked brilliantly, as the sky was vast and clear and wonderful, the moon almost full, and we briefly joined some lovely hippies with a fire on the beach, so we had Earth Air Fire and Water and felt thoroughly enchanted and arcanely mystical. Also we went for a paddle and the sea was almost warm, so that was very happy as well, if a bit sandy and full of seaweed, but one should not mind about these things if one is staring into the mystic void. Even crabs and sharp stones and unexpected dog poo should not matter.
After that we were thoroughly arcane and filled with celebration, so we made our way to the Travelodge and asked for two glasses of red wine and a pizza. This is such an unusual request here that the girl on the bar did not know which of the bottles had the red wine in them, and we had to point and explain. I should not be unkind and ridicule her, because she was a very lovely girl, if not very well versed in the wickedly alcoholic ways of the world.
It is weeks and weeks since I have had anything to drink, and now I am entirely intoxicated.
Also I have been living on fruit and porridge for weeks and weeks, so the sudden Barbecue Chicken Pizza assault on my digestive system has caused it some distress.
I might have to go to sleep soon.
I got up this morning and dashed around the walk with the dogs, before hurrying up to Booths for ethical raspberries to eat on the journey. These are much better for me than chocolate biscuits, so I am trying very hard to prefer them, perhaps without the success I might like. After that I took them to Elspeth’s, the dogs, not the raspberries, where they are to be cherished and cared for until we get back. I passed a very contented half hour with Elspeth, drinking coffee on her lawn in the warm sunshine, whilst the dogs charged about and barked at one another, except that some time later they were most upset to discover that I was trying to slope off without them.
Elspeth had to hold on to their collars whilst I rushed off to the taxi and screeched out of the gate. I hope they are all right and not pining sadly in my absence.
I had hardly been at home for twenty minutes when Lucy turned up, although somehow it took us almost an hour of faffing about before we were ready to depart. I made sausage sandwiches for the journey, which was also a surprise to my poor, astonished digestive system.
After that we drove for hours and hours and hours, which all went smoothly apart from a little bit where the A9 was closed and we had to sit in a queue and wait for ages, but we did not mind, because the evening was warm and happy, and we got there in the end.
I can’t write any more. I am very dizzy and sleepy. Really, red wine before bedtime is a bad idea.
I will have to try and remember that tomorrow as well.
