Stretched

These short days continue to slide past like a muddy river. You spend a few minutes on the brink of a new week, and then before you know it you're over-tired, crotchety, longing for bed and remembering you have to start a sourdough loaf off tomorrow if you want bread on Wednesday - at least, I do, I am doing...

It wasn't much of a day for photographs, inside or out. I may even have posted a very similar one to this in the past. But perhaps it will liven it for you if you imagine a figure, just where the camera is, dressed incongruously in black leggings, bare feet in bright blue/purple trainers, topped by several layers of jacket including a down gilet and a cagoule which exaggerate the contrast between big body and skinny legs (like a robin). Now picture her doing a little jig to keep warm, marching up and down this stretch of road while waiting for a Mini to come over the brow of the hill to pick her up ...

And that's how my day began, in grey, chilly Victoria Road at the end of our lane, looking along this main route from the north to the foot of the peninsula, with the grey Firth of Clyde and - only you can't really see them today - the islands of Bute and Cumbrae. A fine rain is falling, just a sort of dampness, really, but the promised rise in temperature has not yet manifested itself. 

Pilates was tough. The class had grown, as people perhaps felt they needed to do something with their bodies before Christmas. I don't think there's an unstretched muscle in my body, not a ligament that isn't now wailing slightly. And as for my hamstrings ... 

Other than that, all I accomplished was to collect some prescriptions and some more LFD test kits and check out a replacement bird table in a shop where, inexplicably, the three staff members were maskless - though the youngest chap was using a mask to hold his chin on and had the grace to make a gesture towards pulling it up when I went in. 

The three houses across the road have all now strung garishly flashing lights all over their houses. They switch them on as darkness falls; the only redeeming fact is that they put them off when they go to bed. I never really understand the point of this tasteless display - it's not as if the inmates of the houses ever see the demented flashing anyway. This is a recent development, and I'd forgotten about it. 

And it's still only November.