A day and a half

Today I might as well have been at work or something equally busy-making - and now, at 10pm when I really wanted to watch the news, I'm dopily doing this. Maybe I'll come back to it ...

And here I am. My full day began with hanging out two loads of washing and noting the return of the builders to our front path - the main man had booked a week's holiday after starting on the job, and it's been sitting there in the perfect weather all week and now ... but at least they're on it again. Meanwhile the racket from along the lane announced that work had begun on resurfacing the stretch of road between the two ends of our crescent, which means that exiting and returning to our drive-in is going to be hell for a while.

I walked down to my painting class in glorious sunshine, though there was a distinctly autumnal nip in the air. I enjoyed doing the painting of a number of tiny background buildings, using different greys and some fine lines to bring depth to structures - it took me right back to the kind of drawing I enjoyed as a child. Walking home again along the seafront I was hailed by an old friend - we worked together in the English department at the Grammar School and he taught me rock-climbing and abseiling and took me on some of the most epic climbs of my life. That was about 25 years ago now - I find it hard to believe. We stood in the sun reminiscing and catching up until we were joined by a third teacher from that era, my son's Physics teacher - work was fun, with all these people under one roof!

Despite its being Tuesday, with our usual strange eating-time arrangements, we decided it was too lovely to stay in and headed down the coast for a short walk along the shore before dinner. I saw (and photographed) a stone-chat sitting on a wire pondering his forthcoming trip to Africa, and we met the two women who used to own a hairdressers in town. As they had cut my hair for years (and given me a curly perm!) this meant another conversation, and it was 4 o'clock before I was throwing things into a pan to make pasta.

By the time choir started, I was totally exhausted - we both were - and my voice had gone strangely croaky, but we had a good rehearsal of two old favourites, Blue Moon and Somewhere there's Music. Getting them idiomatically swinging takes quite a bit of work ... We laughed a lot as well as singing. 

And now it really is time to go. My collage shows the incredibly clear sea at high tide just beside the promenade, a set of Victorian steps down to the water which have been battered to bits over the years, and a moment in the choir practice when we're all listening to Himself at the piano. A random collection, but ...