Light in the gloaming

Pundits sometimes utter portentously that some football match was "a game of two halves", but today I find myself thinking that of my own day. It was still wet this morning as I drank my tea and contemplated the gloomy Firth, still wet as I went out, inappropriately dressed in leggings and a fleece, to Pilates. So far, so grey. But actually it wasn't at all grey psychologically - so that when I think back to the morning I'm seeing sunshine (there wasn't any, not really). The class was small today - often is, in the run-up to Christmas - and we worked really hard, holding our planks with trembling determination and laughing a lot in between sequences. My pal at the class, a former colleague whose mat is next to mine, chatted about our shared distaste for virtue-signallers on social media, and we parted cheerfully. 

It's at moments like this that I realise that even after 15 years of retirement I still miss the sociability of work - the shared experiences that make for hilarity or sympathy, the variety of company, the effort which often felt grinding but rarely a waste of time. 

Once home and fortified by coffee, I had time to parcel the last of the presents to be posted, although I've not yet sealed up the box because the Really Sticky Strong Tape had disappeared (it's just resurfaced, but I'm on my way to bed). I noticed that the rain had stopped ...

Which meant we went for a walk. We didn't manage to get out much before three, but still climbed to the top of the hill in Benmore Gardens and hastened down again before it became too dark to see our feet. My blip is of the lighted doorway in the Admin buildings round the courtyard where the Benmore Gallery is - I loved the way even a door leading to the odd tractor and other horticultural equipment can look as inviting as the stable in a nativity Christmas card scene. As you can see, it was pretty gloomy by then - dusk thickens with remarkable rapidity at this time of year.

Home to do my Italian and make chilli for dinner and reflect on how irritability sidles in again after the morning's jollity. Maybe it had some connection with the news about the variant on the virus and the growing number of infections in London, but I'm tired of analysing why it seems impossible to get through a day without any grumping.

Thought from today, though, comes from watching the 10 o'clock news with its street scenes from London and other cities: there are so many people in the streets! There's no way they can keep 2 metres away from each other, and they seem so unconcerned about it. I have obviously turned into a total country bumpkin ...