Alternative day

We didn't go to Lewis. The drive alone would, I think, have been very trying in the gusty wind and torrential rain, and finding somewhere in Ullapool to leave the car and - worse - making our way to the ferry carrying bags and hoping it would sail and fearing what the crossing of the Minch would be like totally daunting. Age makes wimps of us, I fear ...

It was a truly horrid day. Actually it began quite peacefully on the Clyde, and the rain and winds didn't turn up till elevenses time - but golly it made up for lost time after that. The absurd BBC weather app insisted we were having "light showers" as I looked through the water coursing down the windows at the new gutter serving our new patio - at least it was good to see how well it works! I did some essential washing and hung damp garments in various strategic points around the house as I remembered the pulley in the tiny kitchen of our first married flat, or the three pulleys in my mother's kitchen. I looked out a poem I knew I'd written some time ago and finally tracked it down in an unexpected location. I facetimed one of the friends I was supposed to be travelling with. And then it was lunchtime and I felt I'd done nothing.

After lunch the sky brightened for about an hour, and we took the chance to pop along the lane to visit the friends with whom we spent our first reprieve from lockdown. They'd celebrated their Golden Wedding anniversary with a party shortly after we'd arrived in Puglia, maintaining the absurd situation in which over 48 years of friendship we've only managed to have one party between us without something getting in the way. I wanted to give them a wee present, and this simple intention ended with us sitting not in the garden as has tended to be the case recently but in their house with the prosecco and the photos and the catch-up news and ... and ..

And suddenly it was dark and dinner time and we had to go, having completely disrupted their afternoon. It was totally delightful, and mitigated somewhat the disappointment at my cancelled trip. We ended the day with an online service for All Souls - one of my very favourite services in the church year, cleverly adapted for using on Zoom, with candles lit at home instead of in church. 

An alternative day, but not a bad one for all that.