Onward and upward

Spring has finally sprung. The daffodils are coming out, and so are the scillas. We have the odd really nice day, though the weather is still very up and down, and we had a lovely bout of hail this afternoon by way of variety. The ex-tropical godparents turned up on Friday, which has been a great addition to general gaiety. Teh four of us went out for a little excursion yesterday, which was sunny with a refreshing but not downright cold breeze, and ended up treating ourselves to an ice cream from the shop in Portsoy that makes their own, out of cheerfulness and by way of acknowledging that it was the first day of the year on which ice cream was possible, let alone appealing. Meanwhile, on the work front, for the last few weeks the Professor and I have been entangled with trying to sort out the early modern library of a noble family in Fife (hence pursuing astronomy and alchemy in Edinburgh last week) I’ve now more or less got it sorted out (the conclusion, by the way, boils down to saying that they did nothing in particular but did it very well, which should come as no very great suprise). Anway, with that now out of the way I can start setting about various other concerns which have been more or less on hold. The beautifying of the back spare bedroom is under way: the horrid moulded paper has finally been stripped off the window wall, revealing perfectly respectable plaster (we had feared that putting on that kind of paper was by way of concealing some ghoulish mess underneath), and we are seeing what can be done with the various shades of grey currently to be had, for reasons of economy. Having spent the entire day (the entire week, really) on the misadventures of lowland lairds, I finally have time to join the party, and will set about  doing some gilding tomorrow, and quite possibly, wielding a paintbrush.