Too busy having fun!

The much awaited hiking group duly arrived on Saturday morning and they were almost completely on time. We left about 20 minutes late. Getting to the start of the hike was a bit less efficient, though. First of all somebody got lost from the convoy and we had to stop for them to catch up. Then somewhere along on the route suddenly the whole convoy turned into a petrol station to fill their tanks and buy some grapes. Funny combination, I know but there was a local selling glorious freshly picked grapes in the entrance to the petrol station and most of us bought some. Finally, after about an hour and a bit, we arrived in the appropriate village and this time we got up to the rhyolite very quickly. Funny how your memories play tricks, I could have sworn that it took a lot longer last time, but it was pretty swift this time. And that included Andor getting lost with his GPS again.

Marica was playing silly buggers on the photo, but the landscape still amazed me. The group put their bums down and started eating their sandwiches there and then, but we managed to convince them to go another 200 yards to a picnic spot, only to find 2 guys ensconced in it complete with couldron, open fire and the whole kit and caboodle. So we went on a bit and found a top where we ate our lunch surrounded by juniper trees.

We returned to the cars on a different path and moved on to the second location of the hike. The goal was to get to an acient pilgrimage site, above which there are some hermit caves and close by an interesting group of springs near a pretty ravine. It turned out that the site had some special event, so we had to park up in the nearby village, which added 6km to the hike. It was only towards the end of the return leg we all realised that the distance was a bit of a challenge to most of us. We started off from the lovely old church in the picture and followed a sometimes steep, other times less so path for about 3km. At one point we heard some beautiful church singing in the woods and it turned out the pilgimage site was having an open air mass. We tiptoed past to the hermit caves, which were quite interesting.

After that we found a geocache and discovered a nice spring site by a stream. There was another geocache there, which we also found after a nice rest by the stream.

The route back to the cars was quite long and most of us had a few parts of us hurting, in my case my toes were really suffering from the long steep descents. After we got back home I was really glad the group decided not to stay for the night as I was pretty much done in by the long day.

Today started in a leisurely manner, doing some reading then gardening. The last winter was pretty severe and it killed all my old roses. We bought 6 new rose bushes and planted them today. It is quite a scientific process with digging the hole first, then watering the hole, then put in the peat, then the rose, surround it with more peat, then fill the hole round it, tap it down, water it again and then it's done. We did this 6 times and were ready for lunch afterwards. You can see my lunch in the picture. It consisted of smoked salmon, 3 types of tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, beetroot, peppers, cauliflower and spring onion. I had our famous garlic mayonnaise with it and it was delicious. I also had some peas, sprouts and boiled potatoes, which did not fit onto the plate and it was altogether a treat.

And then came the highlight of the weekend. Callum on Skype in a fantastic mood. He did wave hello and good bye to me this time, but the real fun happened in between. Just in case you wondered about the title of this blog post, that statement could sum up Callum's little life: He is definitely too busy having fun! I was with him for over an hour and it was a joy to watch him. Apparently, recently he went up to his Mum and told her that he was ever so happy! I hope he will carry on being this lovely and happy for the rest of his life.

It was really fun for me too watching him being very active and talkative. He played with his cars, watched TV, played peek-a-boo under a towel with his parents, stroke the cat, did some serious DIY with his toy tools and cooked breakfast for his Dad on his toy cooker. Thankfully Alex's mobile had a software update recently, so it was possible to take tolerable snapshots of the little monster.

Now I am off to watch television: DOWNTON ABBEY IS BACK!! Series 3 takes place in the 1920's and it starts with the arrival of Shirley McLaine as Cora's mother. What pleasures to look forward to!