Familiar haunts

It's almost 10pm, and I haven't stopped yet - by which I'm referring to my usual comatose state of an evening, when I'm sleeping as one drugged in front of the telly unless I'm watching Spooks, in which case I'm tense and wide awake. I need to have a bit of slumpage (don't bother looking it up - I just coined that word and rather like it) but thought I'd do this first. 

It was a chance to wear something different, to put on some shiny little boots and a new necklace (which I shall blip the next wet day, unless something happens), to get into the car and head to Glasgow for a lunch date with my cousin and his wife. The four of us have been doing this since the demise of our parents' generation, when we realised we'd never see each other unless we came to An Arrangement, and we've not managed it since February, for obvious reasons.

We met in the restaurant we keep returning to; it's changed its name and had a facelift, but it's still an Italian restaurant  and the food is good. Now, of course, it has the addition of plastic screens between the tables, and the looming reality of another closure. There were perhaps four other tables of diners apart from us, none of us young, all socially distancing like sensible old people, and it was just great. (I've not eaten anything since; I may have a little smackerel of something before bed ...) We intend to be back, if we're allowed, before Christmas.

I'm blipping four photos of the West End of Glasgow, all of iconic status for me at least. The River Kelvin from Kelvinbridge, the tower of Glasgow University, my alma mater, from the same spot; Coopers building near my old school, which used to be a wonderful grocers of the same name, and the shop on the corner at Broomhill Cross, which used to be a grocers and now looks like a rather wonderful bistro. I used to be sent there for the odd messages when we lived a couple of minutes up the road. If you're not familiar with Glasgow, the red sandstone tenements among which it sits are typical of the area; I spent the first ten years of my life in a top flat just like these.

We got home in time for a swift (and perishing) walk round the West Bay because sitting all day really doesn't suit us, and then I had a Vestry meeting by Zoom. I've just done my three Duolingo Italian lessons, and written this, and now I feel a cup of tea coming on.

A lovely, normalising sort of day. Remind me of it when I become lachrymose ...