A wet Friday night

Well, yesterday I did go into town without my usual paraphernalia. Felt nice. But odd. Much better on busy buses and cafes, I must say. I did shove my compact camera into my pocket at the last minute, though! HilarysView says that doesn't count then. Will have to try harder!

Heavy frost this morning, but it not deter me from partaking of my learning curve in the pool. I was doing a Paul Simon (Slip Slidin' Away) and really should have had my new ice grippers on, but that was too many things to do down at foot level for one morning!

I did 20 lengths of propelling myself through the water by various means. Mainly the front crawl. In fact, a couple of times I did do a full length properly. Still not getting the lungs full of enough air necessary to keep going, as I was trying to get my kicking right and trying not to do windmill arms. Too many things to think about.

Actually, I lie. I did 22 lengths! By the time I had finished, my lane - the Slow one- was empty! It was so inviting, I found myself launching off again for another couple before the real swimmers came in for their 100 lengths. I saw their training schedule.

I came back and after shower, porridge (thank goodness I'm not going to college too) and coffee, I added a few bon mots to lots of Antipodean Christmas cards. JR had got stamps at a not busy PO, so they've been posted! Excuse me while I adjust my halo...

In the afternoon JR and I went into town. At different times. JR wanted to do some Christmas shopping. I do not. I took my tripod and camera bag as per usual, feeling naked without them yesterday.

However, I was on the bus, when I realised that I did not have the thingumabob that screws into the camera and attaches it to the tripod. Fat lot of use that was then! AND it started to drizzle.

There were many people with big cameras and tripods down at the Winter Wonderland Highland Village. I asked several people the other night if they were blippers, and got the reply 'Yes' to my excitement. But on further conversation, like, 'Who are you then?' it became clear they had no idea what I was talking about. There was a group of women out with excellent camera gear who initially agreed they were 'blippers' but it transpired they were merely a camera club on an outing. I may desist from asking people.

Because I didn't have my thingumabob, I had to keep leaning on lamposts to take photos. I suddenly saw in the distance, red hills. Fife! Edinburgh was soaked, and getting dark, but Fife was in sunshine! I rushed over George Street and hung onto a lampost. This will have to be my blip tonight, as forgetting my thingumabob wasn't as final as I had thought.

I love that about Edinburgh - you can get unexpected vistas all the time, it being on built on hills.

We tried a couple of venues for a drink and snack, but they were all packed to the gunnels with office workers, shoppers etc ready to rage, and the muzak was excruciating, so everybody was SHOUTING!

We came home (the bus came sharpish - always a bonus) and had a delicious local pizza and much cheaper bottle of wine, with no MUZAK - just catching up with iPlayer. Much more sensible. At our age.