Hyper ...

There was quite a lot of dampness around today, and plenty of grey cloud, with tantalising glimpses of sunshine. Funny how I can get used to sun, warmth ... At least the sunrise doesn't wake me when I can't see it. So it was the alarm today, getting me up and out to do the shopping in a horribly depleted Morrison's. I hate the way that the arrival of summer coincides with the arrival of caravans leading to swarms of locusts/harpies/unexpected shoppers buying up the orange juice I like (with extra juicy bits), the preferred oat milk, the Ayrshire potatoes (except that according to a manager whom I used to teach they've not had any arrive for a fortnight). And that doesn't even address the matter of the vanishing space-to-roam chicken ... Anyway, it all took me quite a while. 

As soon as I'd finished breakfast I was off again to meet a friend for coffee and a catch-up (she's been away) in the cafè attached to the best hardware store, on the fringe of the town, quite close to the school. In our time there I met two former colleagues I've not set eyes on since I retired 17 years ago, as well as a former pupil who's in her late 50s - though to be fair I don't think I was back teaching when she was a pupil in Himself's music department. In all this, what with the chatting and the distraction of people-watching, I drank far too much coffee (the coffee's rather good there) and ended up feeling like a stretched wire, with my head birling. It seems that ageing affects everything, including one's reaction to coffee, and it's not just the caffeine that does it. 

For some reason this meant that we omitted to go out at a sensible time and both felt irritably like a walk at almost 6pm. I felt too irritable for the town, so we ended up down at the Ardyne again, where I took the three photos that make up the collage. The roadside verge is glorious just now with (hay fever-inducing) blooming wildflowers, and we used to be able to walk all the way into the former oil platform construction yard which over the years had developed into something of a nature reserve and was rather pleasant in a sort of post-industrial way. But then people moved in with caravans, and had to be cleared out as a fish-farm took over some of the site, and then the fence was reinforced, and then a new heavy-duty electric gate with security-code operation appeared, and the set-up completed by a grunting generator that seems to run 24/7. It changes the whole aspect of the place, though I'm sure the industry must contribute something to the economy ...

Rather a shame, really.