Fading daylight at teatime.

It has gone dark now outside at 4.45pm.
A busy day.
I woke early as usual.
After breakfast we decided to brave a retail park about a 20 minute car journey ride distant, in Tamworth.
The thinking being it was Monday morning and not likely to be as busy early on, just after the weekend.
Stephen needed some new shoes. His others were worn out.
So M&S beckoned.
Eventually I found a parking space as someone very fortuitously was just leaving as I was driving round the car park trying to locate one.
It was very busy but there was plenty of room in the big store which also houses one of their Food Stores.
All very well organised for social distancing and we only had to queue a few times, first to enter, and then a longer one for the food outlet.
Shoes were purchased without much fuss, extra food supplies for Christmas to go into the freezer, and we had finished there.
Then it was off across the complex of stores on foot to the Hobby Craft supplier. A longer queue outside there and only 40 allowed in at one time.
I needed some blank cards which come with matching envelopes in order to make a few special cards for Christmas. I do this each year.
The cards from the Charity Shops last week have been posted already to people up and down the country.
By this time I was glad we had got there earlier as cars were simply pouring in trying to find spaces not just at M&S but all the other places located across the whole retail park.
I was quite tired when we got home, not being used to so much traffic these days nor hoards of people. But it should help the stores to keep going at least in these difficult economic times.
It is still weird seeing everyone masked, with all variety of types and colours, thinking back to a year ago when Covid hadn’t appeared.
I was still recovering from my last operation then.
Seems like another lifetime!
I didn’t really do much after lunch suddenly feeling like someone had pulled the plug out of my energy bank!
But towards late afternoon, when I realised I had not taken a photo for blip, I took one at the top of the garden after being up to the compost bins with some vegetable peelings.
It was not quite as dark then.
The pink shrub roses are still flowering! When we have a day which is a little less cold and no frost forecast I will just deadhead them all and put the clippings into one of our other three bins behind the shed.
The Christmas tree is now in the back room waiting for me to assemble it. We brought it down from the loft the other day, along with the lights and decorations.
Maybe I’ll start after tea........