Out ... out ...

Weather possibly a little worse today? Certainly our front-facing rooms are feeling the chill, despite double glazing, once the heating goes off at 10pm and leaves us with only the fire; these Victorian houses have so many places where draughts can sneak in. When I was locking the front door just now I was rash enough to open it - just to peek out - and had to lean my whole body weight against it to shut it again. Idiot ...

At least I got out today - two outings, in fact. First was a quick session in the perishing church (thermometer read 2.7ºc today) to record the Advent Prose and a Kyrie for Lent services; we were briskly efficient and had no retakes. Home for coffee and out again to collect the clicked messages (doesn't that sound absurd?) - the usual disappointment with the oat milk and the cabbage, but we won't starve. 

After lunch I went out with my pal for the first time in weeks. She was in town for an appointment, so we bashed off up the back of town and fetched up in the Bishop's Glen, where the town water supply used to come from. Although the top reservoir of the original two was returned to its natural state quite a while ago (awful that though I remember picking brambles round its banks I can't think when it turned back into forest and river) the lower one is still there, home to ducks and a family of swans. The run-off is as sinister and deadly-looking as ever; my blip was taken from a funny little mirador thing to the side of the road up the first part of the glen; it gives the only view straight onto the water as it cascades down several concrete falls in a dramatic fashion.

If it was a relief to have a laugh with one friend, it was even better that we should meet another along the loch and could therefore share our frustrations and the anomalies of the vaccine practices of the various doctors' surgeries around Dunoon. (That "and" isn't a mistake; the frustrations came from more than the vaccination programme. Trust me.)
Then, of course, my pal realised time was marching on and the pair of us speed-walked all the way back down to my place, leaving me a grease-spot under all the layers I'd put on to combat the east wind and the rain.

Now I seem to have developed a fruity-sounding cough. Where on earth would that have come from? I shall take my hypochondria off for a hot bath and leap into bed while I'm still warm ...