Sweet gifts from and for friends

No photos of people today :-) and the one above is borrowed from people with more luck and good planning then me. The times when my camera finger really itches are of course the times i haven't got it with me..

This week i have been back up in Scotland and was greeted by the most amazing blue skies, the kind of sharp, pure blue you only get up there. I wish i had had time to feel the beach under my feet, but unfortunately the closest i got was not nearly close enough...

Still, nothing like breathing in fresh sea air, looking around and seeing nothing but the most intense green and the stark, reliable grey of granite with little white sheep dotted along the hills.

I missed stuff in London, but i got to enjoy a bit of Scottish summer at its best.

The week ended like summer always does up there, with a serious, kid-you-not downpour!

I like the rain in Scotland! It doesn't muck about, with two drops there and two drops here, where you carry your brollie around for nothing and still have your shoes full of dirt at the end of the day. Instead, it is the kind of rain where your brollie is useless, so you don't bother with it in the first place. In 30 seconds you are dripping with the clean, fresh water coming from above, you shake out your hair in the wind and have a good laugh about it. And then you have a cup of tea with shortbreads, or a pint with some fresh fish to warm up.

And just like that the world feels whole and normal again... I have a hunch that this feeling of belonging, of being back home will always be there whenever i am in Scotland. It's strange for so many reasons, i can't even begin to explain, but why questions things when they feel right ?And to me this does.

I'm back from this week as peaceful and as relaxed as i haven't been in quite a while.

So, because i feel so good it's time to share! Over the last weeks i have received some musical gifts from good friends and here is for all of you my favourite bit of Tosca :-) Don't go... on noooo, not Tosca again! before you listen to it :-)

Of course it is Jonas Kaufmann as Mario Cavaradossi singing "O dolci mani..." from act 3 Tosca in Wien a couple of days ago (she is Catherine Naglestad, and don't gt too bothered about the orchestra ;-)):

CAVARADOSSI
Tu!?... di tua man l'uccidesti? - tu pia, tu benigna, - e per me!

TOSCA
N'ebbi le man tutte lorde di sangue!

CAVARADOSSI
prendendo amorosamente fra le sue le mani di Tosca
O dolci mani mansuete e pure,
o mani elette a bell'opre e pietose,
a carezzar fanciulli, a coglier rose,
a pregar, giunte, per le sventure,
dunque in voi, fatte dall'amor secure,
giustizia le sue sacre armi depose?
Voi deste morte, o man vittoriose,
o dolci mani mansuete e pure!...