Spring no more

We're back in winter - and it seems all the harder after these two days of sun and the promise of warmth. With a biting air from the north, it was back to warm jerseys and the fire giving me tartan legs as I sit at my desk, which is where I've been for a good bit of today.

I have to say I felt pretty lousy this morning when I woke - I don't think I slept very well, though the memory of the night was hazy. One of the post-vaccine questions on the Zoe Covid reporting app asks about an increase in allergy symptoms, and I certainly felt that might be the case as I coughed like a smoker until after breakfast. 

Whatever the reason, I didn't feel at all motivated to go out for exercise today, but compromised by walking to the church to make this week's recordings instead of taking the car. The photo - the only one I took all day - shows how Holy Trinity looms over the road from its hill, the hill our former Bishop thought ought to be far more of a deterrent to all us ancients than it seemed to be. Anyway, walking up that hill fairly helps warm us up before we start working in the chilly interior of the building.

We listened to the Holyrood committee hearing with our lunch, and I marvelled at the manner in which our FM kept going, fielding questions for hour after hour of scrutiny. I see there are scores of new members joining the SNP this evening, which can hardly be the desired outcome of those Opposition politicians who have been so vocal in their backing of the enquiry. I cheered when I heard her say this: "As First Minister, I refused to follow the age old pattern of allowing a powerful man to use his status and connections to get what he wants.”

I tore myself away to do some Italian, irritated at my own failure to remember genders and pronouns, and then watched a webinar by the Zoe scientists on the after-effects of vaccination and the various conditions that had been thought to exclude the use of the various vaccines. I never knew, by the way, that "man-flu" is an actual Thing, caused by men's lesser immune system ...

I'm giving that new serial on BBC2, The Terror, a go - though I opted to watch the News instead of the second episode, which I'll catch up on tomorrow. Some familiar faces in the cast - it seemed incongruous to have Brutus and Julius Caesar from the wonderful Rome a few years back, now in Victorian naval dress and fighting the Arctic. 

What a tedious sort of day, tediously written, I fear. Still feel wabbit - that's my excuse anyway. Time for bed, said Zebedee ...