Deceptively calm ...

I'm posting this peaceful photo of our beautiful, chilly church in the meagre snow - all that's fallen in this part of Argyll - because it's not been a calm day at all. Rather it's been an exciting day, one which kicked off before I'd even got out of bed with the announcement online of #1 son's new job as Editor of The Scotsman.  We've known about it for a few weeks, and the effort to keep schtum has been considerable. Nary a leak, however, passed my lips or my keyboard, so I had the fun all day thereafter of congratulatory messages on my Facebook page as people from my life and his past life caught up. Needless to say I'm button-burstingly proud (I just learned that expression today - it does fit!). It's a big job, and perhaps one he was surely destined to do when he started producing his own paper at the age of ten. 

However, you can't rest on your proud mum status for ever, and there were hymns to be recorded, so after coffee we walked in brilliant sunshine to the church to deal with it. I had to lend Mr PB my sheepskin mittens halfway up the hill as his hands freeze quite enough inside the church to make playing more or less impossible. (Why won't men other than Bernie Saunders wear mittens? There's nothing quite like them for keeping hands warm.) The organ - a new computer organ - was so cold that it wouldn't work properly until he'd been playing it for half an hour; the main effect was that he had to do the transposing of a hymn for himself rather than electronically. (I need this concession - I was never a soprano.)

The other big excitement of the day was being vaccinated. I had to go down to the surgery at 2pm, Mr PB at 4.15pm. There was an amazing air of purpose and cheerfulness in the cramped building, with the cold air swishing from the fire exit by which we had to leave, and I was so impressed by the care taken to explain and question before the jag was given. I have to admit that it came as an additional relief to hear that the WHO has approved the Oxford vaccine for global use for all adults - these niggling doubts being cast over the last week were unsettling. 

One last piece of important, cheering news: I hung out a whole whirligig of towels to dry this morning, and when I took them in about 3pm they were dry. Dry. Truly Aslan is on the move ...