Not giving up ...

I wasn't brought up to Ash Wednesday. My Glasgow childhood had no "pancake" ceremonies on Shrove Tuesday either - they happened in stories about other children, or in Rupert the Bear, or in comics. Pancakes were an alternative to scones at teatime, and were eaten with butter and perhaps jam, and with fingers rather than a fork. And though we knew that our best friends in the next close to us had to go to church and appeared later with dirty marks on their foreheads, it was merely another of the differences between Catholics (them) and us (not wildly observant Presbyterians). 

But here we are now on Ash Wednesday, celebrating this most solemn of self-dedications at home, on Zoom, with the ash (made by burning last year's palm crosses) having been sent to us last week in lovingly-made little packages such as might have held Askit powders (our rector used to be a pharmacist) along with the words of imposition, putting ash crosses on our own foreheads and emerging, at the end of the service, as so many little faces on the screen, all marked with ash. It was strange, it was moving, and it marked almost a year of doing things ... differently.

Before this, a day in which it didn't rain, though a strong SW wind was driving a boisterous high tide onto the shore road as we drove down it this afternoon. The morning was taken up by domesticity and chat: I hung out washing that dried completely; I made the most delicious botf soup; we finished off the Christmas cake (I shall regret its demise); we ate a silly collection of things for lunch, the most substantial element being a banana. We walked over the Ardyne road in a marvellous light, with the sky to the north of us a luminous leaden colour and the rough grass golden in the afternoon sun. My blip comes from that road - a cottage I've photographed before because it seems to me a real chocolate box photo.

I notice from the Travelling Tabby that Argyll and Bute is falling behind in the vaccination rates now, after doing quite surprisingly well. I know that our surgery was still vaccinating the 70+ range today, as several of the participants in this evening's service had been there. I wonder how they - or any other small practice in these parts - manage to keep up with people needing to see a doctor for ordinary things. I don't see how things can go on without something ... breaking?

Watched a programme this evening about home life during the last war. Some of the underlying themes were so similar to now - stay at home, food shortages, panic buying - but the family who were "living" the life of the early 1940s were so cheerful about the privations that it brought home how hard it is to remain cheerful - and as for keeping it up for all those years... At least the people left at home could have the comfort of other human beings, rather than having to regard them all as potential danger. But on a definitely cheerful note, I caught sight of some of the Government propaganda about potatoes (would it be called propaganda? All the advice about not wasting food?) and remembered The Potato Book. I probably learned to read from this book as much as from anything, with its illustrations of animated potatoes. Instant nostalgia.