A touch of euphoria

I hate it when I'm so late starting to write that my backup programme has kicked in and slows everything up - that collage took an age to upload! But here we are, and it's again past midnight, and I want to start by thanking everyone who dropped by to mark my blip day yesterday. I feel that writing it is a good exercise for me (I know - we justify our compulsions) because writing, like every other skill, deteriorates with lack of use - as my handwriting has done because of using the computer all the time! Boringly, it gives me the chance to note that, for example, I'm a bit too fond of the parenthesis, and particularly one signalled by dashes ... and of ellipses, too, come to that!

But to the day. I just had to use a couple of the photos I took from the top of the steps into the supermarket this morning not long before sunrise, when these vivid orange clouds were indeed the colour they show here. I'd barely been able to drive down the road for looking at them - and I was also hindered, it has to be said, by the remnants of the ice on the windscreen and the condensation generated by my being in the car, which meant I drove with both the front windows open. Morrison's was more hellish than ever because of the extra Christmas stock - the first thing that greeted me was a cascade of potatoes, carrots and parsnips where the blueberries and grapes should have been. It was also busier than usual, with people presumably anxious to get their hands on the parsnips. I had an encounter with a grumpy old man (probably my age) who kept meeting me at the top of aisles (he was going the other way) and who, the first time, stood like the proverbial rabbit in the headlights not knowing where to go. "You go that side," I said, cheerfully, "and smile!" 

He didn't smile. 

But he rocked up behind me at the checkout and began loading his stuff onto the belt before I'd unloaded all mine. I was piling it into my trolley when I heard my friendly checkout lady say crisply "No! I'm still serving this lady!" and we rolled eyes and had a girlish giggle. Funny how one can still turn into a schoolgirl again...

The tall photo in the collage comes from my walk home from the Co-op, where I'd been posting a parcel (the Post Office is inside). I love this remnant of past times, this green space between the main road and the Milton Burn - I always use it rather than the road. In addition to the parcel posting, I finished off wrapping presents, two of which I only bought today, and stashed them all in a box ready to take with us when we go (fingers crossed) to the family for Christmas. And I went for a solitary walk round the back of the town in the afternoon after buying various eco-cleaners in the Health shop, which meant that I was carrying a heavy rucksack full of stuff. Surely that'd use up a few more calories? 

By dinner time I had that sort of euphoric sense of being on holiday, mainly brought on by having done the week's shopping and added to by the feeling of having all these parcels. There is much still to do, but I can see an end. Tomorrow I may get the length of assembling the tree - and there's the crèche to find in church, which may mean a hideous search in the sodden tower ...

But that's tomorrow. It's already tomorrow, but that's a different tomorrow. I think.