Robert had a sunny day for his Archie walk - first for a while. Though of course, the paths in the Hermitage are very muddy. In fact, he slipped over and the back of his coat was rather muddy. However, today he was rewarded with a warm mince pie with his coffee in the garden. 

JR was up and off to the supermarket early (ish) and I bit the bullet and rang the bank AGAIN. Another hour or so of my life wasted, listening to MUZAK and constant automated apologies every minute. I had to be passed on to someone from ‘security’. However, this woman I could hardly understand and the line was terribly crackly. I could hear her rasping breathing and gurgling, and eventually I told her it sounded like she was under water.

‘Sorry. It’s a condition I have. And I’m working from home.’ 

I felt bad, so when she offered to pass me on to someone else, I said no, it was OK - and it wasn’t just that I didn’t want another half hour of listening to MUZAK and APOLOGIES.

But it wasn’t really OK, it was quite stressful, trying to answer security questions when I wasn’t quite sure what she’d said. JR didn’t help by coming in and rolling her eyes at every garbled exchange (she hadn’t heard the bit about ‘the condition...’)  However, it was sorted out, and the payment went through. It wasn’t a big amount, so I don’t know why the bank didn’t just contact me directly and save all this bother.

It was still sunny in the afternoon, so we took a walk round to our wee pal Mary’s flat. I reckoned I could walk there, but would get a bus back (4,447 steps). We handed in a bunch of flowers and a card, but hadn’t intended going in to visit her anyway (not with Archie) and will try to meet up with her (outside) one nice morning soon. We haven’t seen her for months.

Archie was keen to get into the Christmas spirit. Not.