More memories

I'm blipping - as usual - in the hour before midnight. It's still light over the hills to the west - and it's cold. It seems all wrong, to be so chilly when the nights are so short; quite discombobulating, in fact. Last night, just as I was going to bed, I was taking a quick look out of the back bedroom window at the splendid moon - and saw what must have been the International Space Station heading purposefully across the sky, below the level of the moon, heading down the Clyde. It was strangely surreal - as if one of the stories I loved as a child had come alive - and brought with it an almost primitive awe.

Today has been cheerful, despite the chill. I went to Pilates with a friend; the class was busy and we worked our socks off because the teacher's been invited to her brother's wedding in 8 weeks. The time flew past. After coffee, I had time to pop down to the wee jeweller's shop to hand my wedding ring in for sizing - I'm terrified of getting it stuck because it's too wide to be comfortable. The woman behind the counter carefully wrote my name down without my telling her - "I remember you from school", she said cheerily. It's disconcerting when perfectly adult people turn out to be pupils ...

Later we went for a constitutional in the drizzle. Coming back through Kirn, I thought of 47 years ago, when I used to push my pram round all these little streets, trying to get the geography of Dunoon into my head. There are considerably more houses now than then, and some fascinating hidden corners I'd never seen before. My blip main shows the view across to Dunoon, where my house can be seen in the tall terrace below the light on the street lamp standard - you can see why we get such a good view. 

My extra has more memories in the shape of a flame-coloured azalea, to the left of this pair; we bought it when we lived in a ground floor flat in Hyndland, with a tiny garden under the bay window. When we moved, we took it with us, planting it in the garden of the council house in Kirn where we spent 18 months before buying the house we still live in. It has never really flourished - I put it down to its disturbed childhood - but this year looks more promising. I think it tends to suffer from drought in a normal May, unless I remember to water it ...

My main takeaway from today is that I am so much more cheerful if I have good exercise and fit everything else round it. How long can I keep this up?