I'm still merely paddling in the shallows vis-a-vis the move - still only making phone calls to enquire about x/y/z - but despite jettisoning all manner of activities I haven't really time even for this! My life is dwindling: I weed, I write, I worry.

However, I did take last Saturday off - for the village Highland Games. It was gloriously hot and sunny, and by mid-afternoon the field was littered with spectators invarying states of intoxication having either availed themselves of the beertent or arrived with a rug and a bottle and, in many cases, wine glasses,napkins and bowls of crisps. I drifted from one hazy conversationalist to another. I was accompanied by Himself who availed himself of the beer tent, so by mid-afternoon I was drifting with my own hazy conversationalist in tow.

There were the usual hoards of young Highland dancers making very heavy weather of jigs, reels and sword dances; there were runners and cyclists andhammer throwers; the local pipe band put on a display. For the second year running the caber tossing was cancelled because the cabers were too long. We were astonished by the appearance, seemingly out of nowhere, of an enormous pipe-and-drums band, outlandishly embellished with a brass sectionwhich included two poor mites playing tuba; then astonished again, when welearnt that the band was from Oregon. Possible explanations for such alarge band from such a long way away pitching up at our small, homespun games preoccupied hazy conversationalists (my own included) for most of the rest of the day. In fact it was still being debated that evening, when we arrived at the pub at the bottom of the village, for a drink in the sun-drenched beer garden, on the way home from a dogwalk along the river path. Naturally, the day ended with a fish supper bought on the way back from the pub.

On Sunday, I went to the new house and measured things. Correction, we wentto the new house where Himself measured things and I wrung my hands. I found windows that don't open and learnt that the wall I need to be long enough for my piano, isn't. I discovered the kitchen won't accommodate my [tiny]chest freezer; and there's nowhere for a catflap; and I can't live with the lino in the bathroom; and my desk won't fit anywhere; and that Himself is amazing. Amazing because he allowed my rising panic to wash round him, making soothing noises when it threatened to drown him, but otherwise calling out lengths and widths like a sailor navigating by depth-soundings through a dangerously narrow, rocky channel. The fact that in the main, I had no idea what these measurements were for made it seem only more miraculous. (I learnt last night when Himself explained that he'd worked out how many tins of paint I'll need to buy. To someone who has always first assumed one tin will do and subsequently hared into the local DIY,paint-splattered, exasperated, and halfway down a wall, to buy a second, the fact that you can do this kind of sum was pure revelation - cravenly I didn't say so.)

This morning an estimator has been and gone - the twelfth and last.

This afternoon I am collecting hImself from work so we can attend a book launch Edinburgh this evening. I hope we'll arrive early enough to visit Plaisir du Chocolat http://www.restaurantdirectory.co.uk/Plaisir-du-Chocolat_564.html
for a cup of very, very, very good tea before joining the hooley - although since there was mention that I [which I trust in practice means Someone Else] price paint en route I might have to argue my case for this rather strongly.

This is our Highland Games weekend. Tonight there'll be a boat race on the firth - heavy, wooden, two-man cobles rowed half a mile against the tide and half a mile with the tide. A gun shot begins and ends each heat. There's a beer tent, and a barbecue, a band and a flypast. For spectators, the whole event will seem as arbitrary as the Caucus race in Alice in Wonderland.

The weather forecast for this weekend is amazing! Sun and [C degree] temperatures in the 20s!! I shan't go to the race tonight, but if the weather is real, I'll spend tomorrow afternoon under a straw hat, lounging around on the grass in the games field, drinking cold beer, and passing the time with the rest of the village, while men in kilts toss cabers and girls in kilts dance between crossed swords and dozens of pipers compete to produce the longest, most elaborately mournful variations on a pibroch.

Today I have a visit from another estimator ~~~

Estimator no 8 arrived en masse - 3 of them: one very old and smelling of stale alcohol; one young man who was, first extraordinarily rude about the number of books I have, then upset by the sight of a toad lying by the front door step, which reaction became more acute and verged on the messy when he realised the toad was headless (the headlessness wasn't very pleasant I admit, but the boy was so obnoxious that his discomfort only delighted me); and the estimator proper who was very small, and stank so strongly of wine and cats that he's made the cottage reek. I didn't bother to show him everything, couldn't get rid of them all quickly enough, and am now typing in the eye of the hurricane I have created by opening all windows and doors as wide as possible on what is akin to an evening in March.

I've found a lovely cottage with high ceilings at the end of a farmtrack, with no neighbours and a small sunny garden on an estate in the hills. The dogs are very welcome; my old, deaf cat will love it. It isn't as pretty as where I am at the moment, because the estate is a working farm but in all other respects it's well nigh perfect. I move in, in August, so I'm getting quotations for removal costs.

Removals estimator no. 7 has just left. Two more are booked in for this afternoon, two on Friday, and one next Monday. So far I've had one chancer who submitted an outrageously expensive quote, one very nice lady who undoubtedly will need to be similarly outrageously expensive to cover the cost of the glossy brochure and the cards and pamphlets she insisted on talking me through before she began assessing the volume, weight and associated moving-man hours of my worldy goods and chattels; one man whose aftershave was very nearly visible; and four who left me convinced that they knew what they were talking about. I have learnt that I shall have to move Calor gas bottles, paint pots, wine bottles, cleaning agents and all other inflammables myself; and that I am to expect to pack between 100 and 120 boxes of books. I have been left no room whatsoever for doubt about just how unpopular the sight of a piano is to a representative of a removals firm (although since last time I moved house I had to move two pianos, I am completely immune to this kind of adverse reaction).

Friends are becoming veritably enthusiastic about the move. One will, he said, help with the redecorating. Thank you, I said, somewhat puzzled - I hadn't planned on redecorating. He will, he said, help me put up shelves and look for wardrobes and find a good barbecue. Thank you, I said, still more perplexed - which shelves? What wardrobes? And since I don't cook, do I really need a barbecue? We can, he said, tackle the garden over the summer. Shocked, I sat down abruptly - he hates gardening. Another friend has told me he'd be more than willing to sort out the problem of phone jacks for the computer - a problem I wasn't aware I had; and a third has volunteered to lay carpets I haven't got. I am beginning to feel a little cowed - I appear to have an alter ego who is managing this move far better than I. As soon as I'm sure she and I concur on when I am moving and where I'm moving to, I think I'll slope off and leave them all to it.

Estimator no 8 is due soon.