Rituals

I feel the days are accelerating just now, so that I'm left with little sense of where exactly we are in the week. To clarify: I've just come up to the study to blip before bedtime, and as I left the room I made some remark which indicated clearly that I was sure it was ... Saturday. Quite discombobulating. Today was at least marked by some seasonal rituals, in that the first thing I did after clearing breakfast away was to measure out the dried fruit for the Christmas cake and pour over the sherry in which it will fester soak for a week. I also spent an absurd amount of time wrapping up two birthday presents for posting - a welter of recycled packaging, parcel tape and, worst of all, cheap sticky tape bought by Mr PB under the mistaken impression that it was Sellotape rather than a cheap imitation. Is there anything more annoying than the sticky tape that suddenly for no reason splits into two as you pull it, resulting in balls of discarded bits as you tried to re-unite the two bits? And is it A Thing that perfectly ordinary tasks take longer as you age, or do they merely, like gases, expand to fit the available space? (And isn't that a law in science?)

So that was the morning, apart from a small clutch of phone calls. I went out to play with my pal in the afternoon and got wet - and it pleases me to write it thus childishly, because I'm fed up with the grown-up me. The hill fog turned out to be quite solid rain in places, but it was fun nonetheless and good to get out for a blether. My blip shows our highest point, looking down into Glen Massan past the assorted monkey puzzles and other trees at the top of Benmore Gardens, now closed for the season.

Thanks to all who dropped by for my blipday yesterday, and for assorted stars and hearts - when I began this thing I wasn't sure if I'd be assiduous enough to get very far, especially as I also keep a written diary and have done since the age of ten. Now it's become a bit of an obsession; I think a few of us feel like that!