Comings and goings

For the first time in several weeks, this was what has become a "normal" Tuesday, meaning that I had my painting lesson, a strange dinnertime and a choir practice in the evening. I don't really find that my sense of timing works as well as my calendar, though, and I simply couldn't be sufficiently awake before I got up to do my Italian tidily in bed and have the morning session dealt with. This meant that after I'd cleared away breakfast I sat myself down, still in my dressing-gown, to do the necessary practice, and was just started on it when something caught my eye ... and the photo above is what that something was. I think this lovely cat is the one belonging to my next-door neighbours but one, and I have met it in their house, but here it was, staring in at me and obviously letting out a meow or two. I couldn't resist going to the back door to say hello - and that's when I realised that for two pins the cat would be inside with me. Clearly rain was not his preferred weather ...

It was dry again by the time I went out, late, to walk down to Paddy's, and well after one o'clock when I came back. In the interim I managed to paint a hillside, a pebble shore and the beginnings of the sun breaking through the clouds. I then had a conversation with a financial advisor about not automatically putting the husband's name first on any documents, and booked a room in the (expensive) Oban Premier Inn for me and Di when we go to Synod. Fortuitously she was in town and dropped in to make sure we both agreed on timings and cooked breakfasts ...

Dinner and the early evening news followed - unlike all the resolute souls who commented on yesterday's post about managing to avoid the news, I feel a probably unhealthy need to know what's going on - even though I always used to think when watching catastrophe movies that the poor hero who knew too much always seemed more tortured than the blissfully ignorant who were simply wiped out. One piece of American news that I warmed to was that strong woman, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, who preached, quietly, firmly, with great conviction,  to the congregation in National Cathedral in Washington, including Donald Trump and his cohort, to have mercy on all in the USA who would now be living in fear because (and I paraphrase) Trump didn't approve of them. 

There were no sopranos at choir tonight - it's easy to find a part missing when there are only two singing it - but the altos worked hard and sang well. We were both exhausted by the time we crept back up our front path - apart from anything, my music stand bag weighs at ton.. 

And now there's a storm on the way. Great.