Belle Epoque

I'd been looking forward to today for weeks -- the opening of the village outdoor swimming pool. I had visions of my first "plouf!" on a warm, sunny morning with, as usual, the pool to myself. I'm no sissy; I'll swim in the rain, and unlike 95% of people round here I'm happy to swim in water that is less than 20C.

But the weather this morning was so unpleasant -- it wasn't actually raining, but the dark clouds were spitting the odd raindrop and there was a stiff wind. I still set off, but as I battled against the cold headwind I got more and more unenthusiastic. When I got there, to my surprise there were some kids in the pool. But I took a few photos and went home. It is supposed to be a pleasure after all. I hope tomorrow will be better.

Rather than sit around at home all day looking out at the rain, we went to Carcassonne in the afternoon, to see Ken Loach's latest film, The Angels' Share. A surprising number of people had had the same idea. It isn't his best film by any means, but it was entertaining enough. Goodness, though, there was a lot of bad language. I'm no prude about this, and I expect people do talk like that in parts of Glasgow, but even for me it was a bit much. So if you're sensitive about that kind of thing, stay away!

We saw it at the Colisée, which I've blipped before. That lovely space I blipped has now been closed for health and safety reasons. But at least the cinema itself is still going, the last outpost of city-centre cinema. Next door is the Hotel Terminus, another magnificent Belle Epoque building. So that's my blip for today.

On the apricot front: I made compote with the rest. Delicious!