Another ****** sunrise ...

I know. I'm always sticking up sunrise photos, always defying death and gravity before I'm fully conscious - but you must admit this is a pretty stunning photo. I haven't done anything to it other than straighten it up a bit - it's hard to keep the phone level when you're stretching awkwardly. And the light was so briefly there - half an hour later, when I looked again, it was a uniform grey, and by breakfast time it was raining. I managed to get to Pilates and back without being soaked, and it wasn't uniformly wet all afternoon, but now, as midnight approaches, it's blowing a hoolie out the back and there's another yellow weather warning for our bit of Scotland and the rain is doing its best to live up to it. 

Pilates was fun, and then too concentrated for chat. Our class is, apparently, notorious for combining a high age profile, raucous laughter and surprisingly strenuous exercises, and it's certainly good for my psyche as well as my bod. I arrive back home - and it's a sharp, steep climb up the road to get here - in a state of collapse, make the coffee as if remaining upright is part of the exercise, then subside with the coffee and my Italian exercises. I need, however, to go back to standing on one foot for each section of my toothbrushing regime - I used to do it religiously, and my balance was great, but when I started to concentrate more on my teeth I stopped the balance exercise and today I felt I was falling off my single foot with every repetition. 

By the afternoon the weather was not tempting us out, so Himself went upstairs to ponder what garments he might pack for going away, leaving me to read the paper and waste time on social media. I did, however, go out - for some reason I thought we had enough potatoes, and we didn't, and I wanted another basket of clementines. This all proved surprisingly heavy to lug up that hill, so I felt worthy. And when I got in I made bread for breakfast and some tea and sat down again.

We had kalettes (predictive text doesn't believe this word) with our duck legs tonight. I'd had them once before and found them tough, but tonight's were delicious; I think because I cooked them in a little oil and water with a crushed garlic clove in a lidded skillet and drizzled them with a little maple syrup ...

I'm off now. I couldn't get to sleep last night - couldn't work out where I wanted my head to go. But tonight I might just ... lie down.