Flights of fancy

Before I get on to anything else: just look at that photo! Sunrise over the Firth of Clyde at 6.30am, all because I forgot to shut the bedroom curtains last night and by the time I realised I couldn't be bothered. I'd be much more awake in the mornings if I were just to go on leaving them open, which I much prefer... 

I had to do the shopping today, having not felt like starting our busy Thursday in the supermarket. It's not nearly such a good day to do a weekly shop - big gaps in the shelves, more people. But the worst shock of all was finding a section of shelves devoted to ... Christmas. Mince pies (regular and posh), stollen, Christmas Cake. (See extra). 

The rest of the day was filled by sorting out the payment of the balance of our next holiday, catching up with Di, back after a few days in the south and needing coffee, having lunch - if you could call it that - in the garden (it was sunny and warm!) and going for a walk at Ardyne to look at the house owned by a Russian oligarch and currently firmly locked up and rather draggled looking. Oh, and tracking #2 son's flight to the middle east en route for Oz.

But before I give up for tonight, I feel moved to explain a little of what I meant by saying I don't think I could cope with city living any more at my advanced age. I lived in the west end of Glasgow till I was 28. My parents never owned a car, and when I was married we couldn't afford one until the year we left the city and came here. We took trams, then buses, suburban electric trains, the Subway. I even remember taking a wee ferry over the Clyde in the city when I was very small.  When I was in secondary school I had two friends who lived in different parts of the South Side; one was reached via a bus into town and another one down and over the river, while the other would meet me off the Subway (to which I'd taken a bus) and we'd take a trolley-bus to her house. (Terrifying acceleration). I skipped on and off public transport with an easy insouciance. I was young and this was my city. Meanwhile my mother - when she wasn't at work as a teacher - shopped more or less every day in local shops, carrying the messages in a brown leather shopping bag. Sometimes I did messages for her, but I wasn't very good at it and we weren't home from school in time as it was a bus ride away.

I couldn't cope with that now. Perhaps as it was then, just, but not now, with the increase in traffic, the shortage of buses, the sheer effort of catching them, having to go on a bus even to see the GP. (Though GPs did home visits when you were really poorly ...)

I think this blip has gone on long enough. I'll return to the topic tomorrow (unless my day is vastly interesting, in which case I'll put it off) to contrast that way of life with the one I have here. 

You have been warned ...