Castle Rock

The Beast in the East has brought the innate goodness of people to the fore. Much of the daily news concerns the cruelty and inhumanity of factions of the human race and so it is heart warming to realise the ordinary man in the street is caring of strangers when the going gets tough.

His Lordship and I don’t consider ourselves old and while not exactly in the first flush of youth we try to act as though we are. Nevertheless we must appear to younger people to be a bit over the hill; even so, I was still surprised to open the door to a younger neighbour enquiringly if we were OK and did we want him to get anything for us. It was such a kind thought and we appreciated it, at the same time feeling a bit disappointed that we must look really old to the younger set.

To prove a point, we girded our loins this morning, anoraks, walking boots and poles to hike down to Princes Street through slush, compacted snow, and some wonderfully clear pavements, and back by the Farmers’ Market in Castle Terrace where most of the Farmers were absent and the stoic ones present looked frozen stiff. A poppy loaf was bought to have with our butternut squash soup at lunch time.

Life is slowly getting back to normal with the buses running again and bread and milk on the supermarket shelves. I don’t like living in little Siberia.