In town

A rare visit to the city centre today, to meet an old friend for coffee in Waterstones. We had not seen each other for over a year, and spent a contented couple of hours catching up. This was another one of those slightly odd experiences: on the one hand, totally ordinary... and on the other, novel territory these days. For both of us, most of the last 18 months has been spent seeing only close family face to face.
En route to Waterstones I passed an Extinction Rebellion gathering, marking a protest against Barclays Bank. Passers-by seemed to be ignoring it completely. The red-clad figures were eye-catching but the accompanying speech was dull and hard to follow for anyone not already well-versed in climate emergency talk. Dispiriting...