Rain is the prediction for today with a temperature only in the 40’s. The sky is gray, a darkish grey. The wind is slight. The weather will change for the rest of the week and will be in the 60’s with lots of sun. On Sunday we may even reach 70°.

Nala has changed her tactics. She doesn’t bring much out but brings in plenty. My house has twigs and chewed pieces of bark on the floor and the rug. Henry even chews a bit. The nuns would call Nala an occasion of sin.

I saw some new flowers in the front garden this morning. They are purple and look a bit like grape hyacinths

When I was a kid, this was my favorite time of year. I loved walking to school in the morning. The air was filled with the sweet smell of flowers. The birds were many and loud. The gardens had come awake and brought color to sweep away the drabness of winter. I skipped joyfully.

In grammar school, recess meant hanging around in groups and talking or sometimes jump roping. I was only an okay jump roper. I knew all the rhymes to say, and I could the turn the rope as well as anybody could, but my feet after a while always got in the way. Fast jumping was way out of my league.

I liked to play hopscotch. We used to draw the hopscotch pattern on the sidewalk with chalk. It had single and double spaces. At the start of our turns, we had to toss a rock to the right numbered square so we’d pick out rocks without many sides so they’d land and not roll. The double spaces were easy as we had to land on two feet, one in each square. The hardest part was picking up the rocks in the single squares as that meant balancing on one leg and reaching down to pick up the rock. I was good at hopscotch.

Today I’ll do the errands I didn’t do yesterday. I was just too comfortable to be out and about.