Long day

Today began early, with me sitting up in bed drinking tea at 6.50am, catching up with Blip comments on my phone, and wondering if it'd been altogether sensible to count on going to the supermarket on what was surely the coldest morning of the winter so far. Was that ice on the road, or merely wetness? Would I break a leg crossing the car park? How long could we live on the food in the freezer? 

In the event, I went. I had to scrape some ice off the car, and hear it groaning as I opened the boot remotely to check that my shopping bags were there. The car park at Morrison's was gleaming with frost but I managed to negotiate it quite elegantly. Inside, it was chaotic - in the fruit and veg area anyway. Great stacks of pallets stood around blocking the aisles, and by the time I got to the potatoes - thousands of which were piled high at the door - the counter was completely blocked. Why, do I hear you ask, did you not take a bag of the obvious, high-piled potatoes? Because they were the blandly and appropriately named White Potatoes and I think they have no taste. While I stood pondering my next move, one of the few other customers in the shop, a young man, came by - and offered to climb along the display to get me a bag of Maris Pipers! We beamed at one another over our masks, he in triumph and me in gratitude, and I told him he was a hero. All this before 8am!

Things calmed down after that. I was home for breakfast, had a phone chat with our tenor from the St Maura Singers - we've not sung together for over a year now - and cut my hair again: the top this time, with scissors, rather than the clippers. It's ok - but I think more redness will be required. After lunch we had a lovely, freezing walk up Glen Massan, where I took several photos that could have been in the Alps, or Canada, and came down at about 4pm without darkness actually falling. 

And I'd have happily used any of the photos I took then, or the pink and golden early morning shots I took as I emptied the car of the messages, only I suddenly saw the light on the Firth as I looked out from my study before dinner. The serenity of the moon and its light traversing the water contrasts with the colours of the fairy lights that are still flashing away on one of the three houses across the road, and you can just make out the little red-lit tree that always stands at the end of the Coal Pier. So that's what you're getting tonight.

And then we had pasta for dinner and the last of the (literally) flaming Christmas pudding. I love my Christmas pudding - just as well it's finished!