12 Oakdale

4:38 AM  Up at o’dark hundred because I’m still a little on European time. Gracie approves because she gets fed even earlier. I am drinking tea again today, rather than coffee. I haven’t become a tea drinker by choice. Before we left, I efficiently used up all our coffee beans. Then I rescheduled the delivery of bird-friendly coffee and messed up the dates. Yesterday, we managed to forget to add coffee to the grocery list and didn’t think to buy any while we were there. Three’s a charm? I’d blame the last on jet lag, but the second was more likely to old age. Arrg. However, I am giving myself kudos for figuring out how to put my photos in a grid on blog pages. (See previous post as an example.) I certainly don’t know the coding language, or even which one it is, but I remember enough to be able to read the HTML version. Eventually I may make pretty edges and more complicated layouts, but this is good enough for now. We worked hard yesterday, getting all of our trip clothing washed....

I don’t know if I caught something on our trip to Atlanta or some other place, but I’ve been dragging the past few days. I’d wake up with a scratchy throat, but a cup of coffee would make that go away. After a week, I was coughing. No fever. Wednesday and Thursday, I laid in bed and read, getting up to present a solstice invocation in Kip’s memory at EarlyBirds but skipping the Tree Board meeting after. They didn’t want to sit next to me coughing anyway. Before that, I was able to do some gardening in the mornings, then laze around all afternoons. We did get my sundial installed. My watercolor and other activities have been put aside. I called Delta and persuaded them to change our Sydney to Auckland flight to Wellington instead. That’s a relief. Another day, I reserved a hotel in Wellington, bought Zealandia tickets, and decided to take the train up to Auckland to meet Betsy and Keith. We will save money on that, because the upscale seats were all sold. Means we will have to bring our...