The Road to Athelstaneford.

We left an Edinburgh mired in a freezing pall of low gloomy cloud and emerged into an East Lothian of sunshine and blue skies.
The red pantiles on the cottage roofs sparkled with frost and the furrows in recently ploughed fields were dusted with white.
The tracks of last week were frozen hard, the imprints of hooves and boots in the mud. deep and rigid.

We were en route to the telephone box acting as a book exchange in the village of Athelstaneford, to offload a dozen books which we couldn't store in the Dower House any longer. I chose a book from the existing selection which looks to be a good read.

We had a coffee in the tiny cafe at Tyninghame, which also afforded a look round the little shop connected to it, with its wonderful selection of idiosyncratic gifts.

Our party last night involved party games. I hate party games, for obvious reasons as you will see.
We had to guess the name that had been pinned to our back, by asking questions of other people. Eventually I discovered I was Heathcliff and His Lordship discovered he was Ghandi.

If that wasn't difficult enough, we then had a picture puzzle game which favoured those people who are good at cryptic crosswords.
The part of brain that is required for solving these, is the part that I have missing, and so abysmal is an adjective not strong enough for my performance. I was relieved to be spared charades or anything worse.

But the mulled wine, nibbles and chat were well worth the feeling of complete humiliation and inadequacy.