Only a rose .... and random kindness

Today looked beautiful. After early greyness - when I left the house to go shopping - we had brilliantly blue sky of the kind I regard as particularly Scottish and sunshine from when I came out of Morrison's having spent far more than usual stocking up after the rather depleted eating of the past week. Appallingly, Morrison's has its Christmas stock in - a whole row of shelves in Ho Ho Ho mode, with stöllen, mince pies, Christmas puddings and variety packs of chocolate. All rather galling at a time when the shelves have great emptinesses on them throughout the shop - there was one depleted crate of bananas, for example, and about 9 empty ones; there was no vegetable oil (it's been at least a week since they had that) and great trolleys full of things that hadn't been put out while another, stuffed high with discarded packaging,  lay blocking the aisle. The firm have apparently cut down on night staff as well as applying a new "plan" which just isn't working. I'll say. 

I think there was a phone call from the travel agent today (I didn't take it) telling us they would expect some news from the cruise company tomorrow. I'm not holding my breath. 

On the domestic front, once I'd had my breakfast and done my Italian and drunk some strong coffee, I finally got round to cleaning the washing machine (ok - I dumped a bottle of stuff in it and ran it for a couple of hours empty) and to putting away the clothes that were still sitting in packing cubes on the spare bed. This necessitated a laborious tidying of a big drawer in order to be able to find anything ever again, so there's a wee glow of virtue there. There are still two summer tops - a shirt and a very thin t-shirt - that I've not had a chance to wear; it'd be nice if it was a bit warmer next week to give them an airing before winter sets in. (Mind, I believe it snowed in the Cairngorms today). 

I spent a good bit of the afternoon in the garden. The border alongside the back path to the drive-in has been so exuberant that we've worn an elephant trail on the grass to  avoid it, so I took the shears along it and followed up with some hacking with the pruning saw. I felt quite warm - but I was wearing a fleece despite the sunshine. Maybe it was just the virtuous glow.

The absolutely most heartwarming thing that happened today was that our lovely Pilates teacher turned up on the doorstep with a bunch of roses for us both because she wanted to cheer us up. She is quite simply one of the  nicest people I know, and we were both overcome by her kindness. 

And now I'm overcome with the kind of tiredness that makes the whole body ache. My teeth hurt because I've been doing what the dentist warned me about - pushing my lower teeth against the top row in times of stress or concentration. No prizes for guessing the cause this time! But I want to say in closing how much I appreciate the sympathy expressed on here while I've been moaning on about the holiday that wasn't!