No blues today

Lest you think I'm referring to mood, let me hasten to explain that the sky remained grey throughout today, with the sudden downpours that can soak you before you've noticed ... And the first of those caught me out this morning when I went shopping. As I've remarked before, Morrison's is so cold inside that even in the midst of a warm spell I had to dress as for a brisk winter's day, and with that thought I put on my Barbour biker's jacket (no hood) as being warmer than my cagoule when I set out just after 8am. It was dry when I left the house, but by the time I'd negotiated the hell that is Victoria Road, all scraped-up tarmac and raised manhole covers, and parked at the shop, the heavens had opened. I stood in the doorway with my trolley under the only source of heat in the shop until the fan heater had made some impression on my wet hair ... and then found huge gaps on the shelves for no discernible reason. Is there a shortage of lemons? 

The rest of the morning I spent recovering my equilibrium and packing a case for the weekend. It's hard to know what to take when the weather's so changeable and so liable to be different in The East anyway. And then there's the chance of football ...

I was just finishing my lunch when there was a call from the surgery, wanting to set up a phone consultation about my latest blood glucose test. This is becoming an annual ritual which I suspect is more to do with the general decline of just about anything than it is about any changes I've made in my life. I put it to the back of my mind and went out to meet Di for a walk; she's been on holiday for over a week and we had catching up to do. Benmore Gardens is usually our place of choice for a totter and blether, and was delightful in the way there are sudden gloriously red trees cropping up in odd corners; the photo above is one such. We also saw a couple of scampering squirrels, so all was good and all gossip carefully exchanged. 

This evening's homework participation was with our older granddaughter, who sent us two recordings of her playing trombone solos of what sounded fearsome difficulty, especially the high one ... I left the detailed commentary/critique to the professional and confined myself to grandmotherly encouragement. 

Watched a fascinating programme that my machine recorded last night, I think because I previously watched The Rise of the Nazis - about the tracking down of high-ranking Nazis immediately after the war. I was amazed to learn that General Mike Jackson, who was commenting, is slightly younger than Himself ...