We each identify what has value and priority with us, and then there is the grudging time given over to matters that must be looked after which are time-consuming and irritating when they erupt, demanding a sacrifice of our time.

This has been one of those days. But first things always come first, and after breakfast we set out for a bit of a moody walk in the ravine. High humidity again, with ample sun, but a strange tension in the air as the clear blue begins to be occluded by definite deeply-banked dark clouds auguring storms in the very, very near future. Just as yesterday was hot and humid with a good breeze blowing through, so too today has its share of a nice, fresh wind, to relieve the closeness.

In the ravine, the wind ruffled the foliage, and the sun lit up the verdant shield of the canopy that screens us from the sun as we make our way through the trails. Noting as we pass that someone, perhaps a large dog, had toppled the large mullein that just kept on developing a taller and taller flower stem. Now it lies broken, its head tipping toward the creek, a yawning empty space where it had stood so erect and proud.

From the aspect of the woods, it is almost as though a sullen mood prevails. Perhaps it's just me, knowing that I've got to do a few errands that will invariably take me to busy places, and I quite detest shopping for anything. First off, to a local jewellery store to have two rings, one on each hand, which I've worn for years on my two index fingers, cut away. I've been lax in realizing that I should long since have removed them while I still could. Now I no longer could and they were each cutting into my fingers

.

It took the gentle ministration of a professional jeweller no time at all to snip through the gold and pry the ring away from my finger; one, then the other, relieving those digits of the pressures that have too long been building. Now each has to heal. And the jeweller will restore the rings, but sizing them more appropriately. Each of those rings has value to me, as gifts from my husband for one birthday or another, away back when. When I was younger, my fingers more slender. I've a habit of not removing jewellery and just wearing them more or less forever.

Then on to a local eyeglass franchise where earlier in the week an optometrist had examined my eyes and produced a prescription for lenses that reflect the current marginally reduced level of my eyesight. My right eye has perfect vision, my left eye considerably less so, given that the vitrectomy I'd had years back hadn't succeeded in its mission. I chose two frames for two sets of glasses, and they're progressive, since that works fine for me. But the process of selection and the resulting discussion of additional details seemed to take forever, even longer by a considerable amount of time than the examination itself took, and it had been precise and time-consuming.

Now it's all done, though, I'll have new eyeglasses in a week or two, and my sentimental old rings will be returned to me, intact, comfortable once again to wear - on entirely different fingers.