Used to be a holiday ...

I'm sure when I was at school (as a pupil, not a teacher) we had a holiday for St Andrew's day, back in the day when there were no mid-term breaks, and when Glasgow schools would have one day off for the weekend at the end of the month and that was it, apart from this day, till Christmas. I think it was different in rural areas - the tattie-howkin' had to be done - but I was a city kid on those days.

Today began beguilingly withe the lovely sunrise I've chosen for my photo - the sun actually shone in at the window for a bit - but the clouds soon moved in to give us a uniformly grey day. Now it's raining slightly, and the roads are wet. My morning, when I stopped taking photos, was taken up by a phone call to my sister, then coffee, then the erection of the Advent Tree that Ewan brought us - a marvel of cardboard engineering with a 3-dimensional tree and 24 sizeable golden boxes, numbered, to hang on it. There was a star for the top and a string of battery - operated fairy lights, and it felt a bit like a test of cognition for the elderly - but we triumphed. I did a bit of tidying on the back of this - threw out three (three!) pairs of tall boots that I wouldn't or couldn't wear these days, as well as sundry papers.

We didn't go out after lunch, but I did my Italian and a whole Sudoku as well as read the papers a bit, but in no time it seemed like the time to change and get out to go for dinner which recent friends from church, who live in the back of beyond Colintraive in what seemed from the inside to be a wonderful house fit - we shall have to return in daylight. Daylight would have made the drive easier - it's one we do relatively frequently in summer, on our way to the beach, but in the dark of this time of year it seems completely different, all passing-places with blindingly bright  signs and sudden stretches of dual carriageway . You know the kind of thing - a pair of headlight appears, coming your way, but hey, there's another hill between us and...and ... Suddenly, there was that sharp little bend to the left, and right again, and we were there, just as I'd thought of on Google maps.

And now I'm home and reeling with the need to sleep.