Dining Al Fresco

What a gorgeous day we're having! It's to get up to 68 today and, I think, it may be there. While Don was golfing with John, I got started pruning the lovely willow-leaved ornamental pear tree in the front garden.

Don came home and we decided to have lunch on the terrace. We are getting in training for al fresco dining in Italy. (By the way, Don was pleased with his game today, especially birdying the first hole, which he'd never done.)

There was much goings-on in our wee village as Don was putting our lunch together. I heard sirens coming from Crieff toward Comrie and then saw a police car (siren off by that time) pull into the drive of one of our neighbors. Seems he had been observed, as one of the villagers put it, full of "happy juice" and was "giving it laldy" (carrying on) in the area of the shops. When he wasn't doing that, he had been seen more than once reclining in the busy through-road.

Someone apparently called the police but when they arrived, they couldn't find him and so came to his house. They knocked loudly. All his windows were open and Scottish Country Dance music was playing loudly on his stereo but if he was there, he was well-hidden. Our behind-door neighbour (Miss RC) told the police what he looked like, what he was wearing, and where his shop is located. (He opened a shop last autumn.) She also told them (and later, us) that he has "mental problems" and probably hadn't been taking his medication. So the police went back to "Greater Downtown Comrie." In a few minutes, an ambulance pulled up out front, waited a few minutes, reversed in our drive, and went back the way it had come. Within 2 minutes, another (or perhaps the same) police car rushed down the road and toward the shops.

We learned what had happened as we were finishing our lunch, when our 3rd neighbour, Nancy, came home from having lunch with her son at the new Comrie Cafe which just opened (formerly The Granary Tearoom). She saw us on our terrace and came over. They had seen it all from the cafe. Nancy said when she left the area of the shops, the ambulance, two police cars, and a police SUV were all in front of our neighbour's shop. We haven't seen or heard anything since so we must presume he's been taken to hospital or somewhere for help. Poor fellow.

We worked in the garden all afternoon. Don just got back from taking the debris to the public coup (pronounced "cowp" but probably related to coup meaning "to throw over," in this case, over the rim of the dumpster!). He picked up tuna steaks which we'll marinate and cook on the grill. If we're lucky we can eat dinner on the terrace too.

The bouquet pictured above is made up of lilacs and euphorbia. The euphorbia are from an area I was trying to thin out. The lilacs are just for colour.



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