Staggering

I'll leave it to the discerning reader to decide to which aspect of this day - mine, the world's, someone's cheek - the title of today's blip applies. I feel it on more than one front, I think, not the least mine own ...

I felt that I really needed Pilates class this morning, and not just because the pounds ( well, to be accurate, the ounces, only no-one seems to talk about them any more) seem to be accumulating in unwanted parts of my aging frame. As I walked down the hill into the main street I reflected how the life of the retired can easily go downhill into looking out of the window in one's dressing-gown, whereas marching down the road - even one as sparsely populated as Argyll Street just after 10am on a winter weekday - to a class which had enough people to make a street look busy, all piled into the studio - that act makes me feel as if I'm joining the busy world, I'm part of it still. And gosh, was class busy - not just in numbers but in the amount of work we got through! At one point I rolled sideways onto my mat in despair, but recovered enough to do the rest of the strength and core work that I'm sure I shall feel tomorrow. 

Back home, I made myself some coffee and settled down to do a full 40 minutes of Italian, dragging myself from the dreaded Demotion Zone all the way into the top three before I'd finished and Himself returned from his class. I had an online Vestry meeting at 3pm, at which we had another chance to meet our new priest and he had the chance to learn more about The Tower. Nuff said. Victorian buildings and all that. And rain. 

So much did we talk that it was late when Himself and I headed out to see if we could get some flour and shower cleaner, but the Eco store was closed, as was, it seemed, most of Dunoon by 5.10pm. We went for a brief circuit to justify having put on shoes and jackets, down to the West Bay and back up Ferry Brae, from the top of which I took one of the four photos I took today - the centre of the old town of Dunoon, with the tower of the High Kirk, now no longer in use for worship, visible by the light on its clock, and the cheerful café which used to be my GP's surgery on the corner. 

By the time we'd finished dinner there was only time to watch Silent Witness - I love the new boss character - and the News. Oh, America.

And I think Clive Myrie should have a woolly hat. 

There was a slight hint of pinkish aurora tonight just before I sat down to write this...