On The Other Side

Usually I find my trips to the hairdresser to be pretty soothing occasions - even though it has usually involved catching buses and running for a ferry. But today ... oh, today. First of all my lovely Michael was absent from his salon this week because of a bereavement, so I was entrusting someone else with my short cut and colour ... And that was just fine. There were only two people working there today, and the lovely Laura who did my hair was just great. Whew. But we had decided to take our new car back to the dealer while I was over there, so that we could have a lesson on how to make the most of the Infotainment centre and - first - wipe it of all the destinations and radio stations favoured by the car's previous owner. 

We were just about to park and go for a quick coffee when the car suddenly yelped at us. An orange warning came up: low pressure in a tyre. The light stayed on. I fled into the salon and left Himself to deal with it. Two hours later I was collected from the pavement by a nice chap in a "Genius" jacket and driven along to the dealer, where I learned there had been a small nail in the tyre ... 

We did, in the end, learn all we needed to know. The car was fixed, and we didn't pay for it. But while I was waiting for the nice Genius I took the photo above, a photo of a building I've looked at for years but never seen, if you get me. Apparently it's known as Greenock's Flat Iron building and is in fact that triangular shape that you find in some celebrated American buildings. The building was once a sugar refinery (or sugarhouse, as we call it) in Greenock - the Glebe sugar refinery.  It is a fabulous shape and the brickwork is wonderful, but it's all boarded up and derelict, and there's an Asda just next to it. What a pity it couldn't be restored ... (You can read more here, if you're interested.)

In other news, I somehow managed not to eat lunch today. Funny thing was that it didn't seem to make any difference other than a slight empty feeling as I came home from a necessary leg-stretch on our return. Maybe that would be a way to lose some weight ...