Red woolly memories

This is the only photo I've taken today, and yes: it's a photo of a photo from maybe 70 years ago. I've not been further than the garden all day, and spent a good bit of the morning in bed. A cold? The Plague? Right now I don't know. I did a Lateral Flow Test this morning, because I had them to hand, and it came out negative, but as we're never done being lectured, they're not the Real Deal and are not to be relied on if you have symptoms. Happily, the good people at Zoe spotted that all was not well with me and sent me a prompt, so I've sent off for the other kind. But since you ask so nicely, I feel pretty rotten - mainly burning soft palate and body aches. More paracetamol beckons, and then I need to make dinner, but since I'm here ...

We were recalling childhood holidays a couple of days ago, and Lady Findhorn triggered memories of the woolly (one "l" or two?) swimsuits we used to wear - much, I imagine, as mediaeval peasants wore woollen hose, because they didn't have stretchy nylon instead. They tended to sag and droop somewhat, until the summer when one was on the verge of growing out of the swimsuit one had worn for years. Mine, as I recalled the other day, had a tuck sewn across my belly for a couple of years until I grew into it, and then there was a dark red stripe across my faded pink middle. That, gentle reader, is what I'm wearing in the above photo. For some reason my younger sister didn't have this inflicted on her, and seems to be wearing a daringly cut elasticated cotton job - remember how the elastic perished and the 3D squares flattened out?

My father took endless photos of our childhood holidays - it makes me tired in my current lassitude just looking through them. But here we are, on a two-month holiday in Brodick, enjoying ourselves in the sea without a thought of the various pandemics through which we would live. Heavens - I don't think I'd even had my tonsils out by this time!

If you're the type that goes in for sub-Christian gestures of hope, cross your fingers for me, eh?