That's better!

It can't just have been the sun; it can't even have been all the lovely empathy from the good people of Blipfoto - can it? Whatever the reason, I ended today feeling a great deal better than I have. I had a strange night, however, waking at four to soundless dark, as Larkin puts it, and feeling that I was sore all over. It took two paracetamol and half an hour for me to get back to sleep again, and it wasn't till morning that I thought perhaps I'd once again allowed the bedroom to get too cold and had been straining to hug myself to stay warm. At the time I was convinced I was ill - but 4am is a bad time for hypochondria! 

Whatever that was about, the fact that I'd logged the aching limbs stuff in the Zoe Covid app meant that today I got a mail from Tim Spector asking me to take a Covid test and inform them of the results. Presumably this is because they've moved on to assess the effects of the different vaccines, including unwanted side-effects; whatever it's for, I've duly filled in all the online stuff and sent for a home testing kit.

After a morning of bread making, washing, Italian practice and collecting the messages,   I allowed myself some time to rummage through a box of old family photos. I'm still actually looking for a photo of me on my fairy cycle, to put into the memoir I'm writing, but instead found a whole collection of photos taken on Arran between 1949 and 1955. I dare say I'll blip one in time ...

Later we chased the sun south, and caught the wonderful light as it set over Bute at 5.40pm. I hadn't felt hugely energetic when it came to going out, but once I was walking I felt better than of late and began wondering if posture has been part of the problem. I find that if I walk like the Duke of Edinburgh, with my hands behind my back, I don't get the same road-induced stiffness and as a result feel much more able to walk for miles. Another 5 mile walk had us back at the car just in time for the last, golden light on the shore.

Blipping the view across the fields and the farm with its attendant wind turbine towards the hills of Arran. I know I keep replicating the same views here, but just wait till we're allowed to move around again!