The new day

I've just come home from choir with that song - New Day - on the brain, having sung it half an hour ago. There are stars in a profoundly dark sky. But 14 hours ago I had to be up earlier than usual, which meant I was able to catch this perfect moment just before the sun rose above the hills over the water. It was beautiful enough almost to stop me cursing at my having made a hair appointment in Greenock for 10am - lord knows how I used to get out before 9am!

My hairdresser has gone back to serving coffee and using towels instead of sheets of floating plastic round clients, though he reckons he'll go on asking for masks for a while after they're no longer mandatory. We agreed it was quite a long time to hover over the one person without some mitigations, especially as Greenock (and Argyll, for that matter) are still showing high levels of new cases of Covid. As usual, I felt soothed by the routines and the hair cutting - and cheered by the coffee. 

The rest of the day was pretty routine except for the dreadful need to watch the news. The elegant Moscow pensioner interviewed by the BBC's correspondent bore out my own experience of how effective the Russian propaganda machine is, a fact that makes the resistance of the young woman packing to leave altogether because she is ashamed all the more remarkable.

But here's a thing, totally unrelated to any of the above. When I was at school, especially secondary school, I suffered hellish chilblains on my toes all winter long. It was partly due to the shoes I insisted on wearing to school, which were supposed to be lacing shoes but in the interests of fashion had only one set of eyelet holes and slid off my heels with every step. (Do you remember that sort of skliffing walk, carrying the school briefcase in your arms, slightly leaning back to compensate for the weight? Add rain or - worse - snow to the inadequate shoes and there you have it.)

Anyway, I've not had chilblains for 55 years or so. But when we were away at the weekend I noticed that the ring finger on my right hand was red and swollen and sore/itchy, and that there were other red patches on another two fingers. My ring, which was my mother's wedding ring, was digging into the swollen bit. All very worrying ...Until I got home, and suddenly recognised the sensation. I looked them up. Chilblains on fingers. And the depressing information that young people were prone to them, as were ... old people. 

And I remembered. Thursday morning, shopping in the snow at 8am, carrying the bags down the snowy garden, my hands white and red with the cold. When I was finished, I washed them - and the water was lovely and hot, and I thought ...this is the way to give yourself chilblains.

Fool.