At last ...

I've finished doing things to the Christmas tree. I should think every window in town had one weeks ago, but hey ... some things are traditional chez moi. And some of my ornaments, as I've said in the past when I've used photos of these wonderfully fragile glass baubles with the dent in the side which seems to be even thinner glass and has now broken in both of them, though they're up there too - some of them are totally traditional for me, finding their places even on a relatively little fake job such as we now have. The one I've chosen today, however, one of a set of wind instruments, is relatively recent (like within the last quarter-century?) and is here in a hat-tip to my trombone-playing granddaughter who's just heard in the past week that she'd been offered unconditional entry next session to each of her three chosen universities. I know which she's going to choose ... 

Today, the shortest day, has been a tad wild. I had this odd feeling that I was almost ready for Christmas - all bar the singing, natch. The tree was really the last thing before I start preparing a case for going away, so after the usual Italian followed by coffee I spent the time till lunch draping tinsel and disporting the chosen baubles on the tree, wondering as I did so quite how it was that my plastic tree seemed to have shed some needles ... 

That done, I subsided somewhat while Himself, inevitably, vanished back to the church. He says he needs more practice in his old age because his fingers and feet are less ready to do his precise bidding. I read, I dozed in a chair, I struggled with a sudoku, and then realised I'd go mad if I didn't get out. And so it was, O Best Beloved, that the pair of us found ourselves being blown along the West Bay promenade by great gusts of wind, as the dark blue-black sea hurled white foam very close to us on a high tide and the storm clouds surged up the Firth, soaking us in their passing, then clearing again to show Venus bright above the town. And I felt better. 

I'll stick on a collage of the walk, I think, just because I'll not be putting extras up when I'm blipping on my phone and I have three left to use. And now it's time not for bed but for dinner, for I'm TRYING TO BE SENSIBLE. 

If anything thrilling happens in the next 5 hours, I'll add it later...