Another year dawns ...

No, I've not lost my reason - I know it's been 2021 for over a week: I'm referring to Himself's birthday, which began with this lovely red sunrise sky and swiftly deteriorated, as far as weather went, into a more typical Dunoon day of hill fog and fine rain as the front moved in and the temperature rose, though as there was a wind in the morning it actually felt perishing.

So even despite the fact that we saw no-one face-to-face today, it was busy in the way special days are in this time. The morning saw lovely phone calls from #1 son and from J's Best Man (does it have capitals when it's over 50 years on?) and the opening of presents, so that the recently-tidied living room was once again a sea of paper and cardboard, followed, rather sinfully, by coffee and a sinfully large piece of chocolate birthday cake, thoughtfully provided by my daughter-in-law in the name of our grandsons. (I am becoming more and more inclined to graze randomly through the middle of the day - is this sinful?)

Eventually we managed to get out and escape the steadily-falling rain by going south again and marching along the shore road and out the Ardyne beach road to the very end; this is a reliable 10,000 step walk and a good standby on a poor day. We had toast and Marmite (actually, I had Vegemite) and gallons of green tea at 3 o'clock, more phone calls, and a teatime Zoom call with #2 son and family. It may have been teatime, but we were all drinking not-tea: we had bubbly and blinis with smoked salmon paté as a preface to dinner, which wasn't yet cooked. (Rash that, but we managed ...) 

The evening, or what was left of it, was passed in a haze of watching, not for the first time, the film of Tinker Tailor ... I realise I've never understood what was going on, not in the series with the wonderful Alec Guinness, not in the video of same which I bought to try to get it, and not the first time with the modern film. I find I'm mesmerised by it, but that things elude me ...though to be fair, that may have been the drink-induced dozing-off. 

And I realise, now, as the clock has just struck midnight, that I've not heard or seen any news since breakfast. I've done a quick check of the Travelling Tabby to see the Covid figures for Argyll, but that's all. (If you don't know this site, it's worth checking out for its wonderful graphics - the fact that its creator is a Dunoon chap only makes it better). I think I felt so battered by the soaring infection figures yesterday, along with the political news and my own fury at Michael Gove and the rest of them that I wanted just to let today pass without bothering; what is slightly disturbing is that it proved remarkably easy to do when I put my mind to it.

That last sentence sounds totally Irish. But you know what I mean ...