Social joys

There's a line in a hymn I only came upon when I became a Piskie, Jerusalem the Golden, which wonders "what social joys are there", and I thought of sort of celestial tea parties and how wearing it would be to go from one to another for all eternity ... and now, bother it, I'm going to have the tune as tonight's earworm. Let's hope oblivion prevails. 

Today was one that might have belonged in Jerusalem the Golden were it not for the weather, which began with hopeful sunshine but progressed to dismal drizzle and low cloud by afternoon - though annoyingly, as I locked up at 11pm, I noticed that the sky is completely clear with the Plough standing clear right above my front door. 

Our first social joy came in the form of a friend who left the area more years ago than I care to remember, whose daughters were both pupils of Himself. She was on a fleeting visit to Dunoon and texted me last night, so we had a solid two hours of talk of past and present, of Pilates and walking, of grandchildren and our increasing decrepitude. 

After lunch (I never managed the wee sleep, sadly) I went to join pal Di for a walk in the rain round the flat farmlands of Dalinlongart, where we looked at trees which appeared to be made entirely of pale green lichen, and she told me of a mutual friend's large tree that had blown down in her garden and scattered that same lichen far and wide. I filled her in with the trials of my week, blood tests, dentists, doctors and hair and all, and we compared notes. (We also got completely drookit.)

Then it was back home for tea and biscuits (kindly supplied by our visitor) with a friend who came to tell us what she was going to do next with her life - a decision which has implications for us too, as she is a musician ... When she left, there were phone calls to be made before we could settle to cook and consume dinner, aided by a wee dram as I stirred the wok ...

My allergic reaction seems (touch wood) to be subsiding, but I still know that I won't be able to colour my hair any more, which is deeply sad. I'm away to wash the olive oil out of it now.

Blipping the view from my bedroom this morning when the sun was lighting up the hill on which stands Kirn, the next village to Dunoon. In the foreground, above the house over the road's odd flat roof, you can see Morrison's car park, where I used to look down at the Covid queue snaking round its perimeter. To the right of it is George Street, one of the older streets in town, with the RC church at the far end, and beyond, rising into the sun, is Kirn, where we first lived when we arrived in Dunoon almost exactly 49 years ago. I used to walk my pram down that hill, exploring the byways that led to the front where I liked to walk in the days when I knew no-one, and there were no social joys at all. 

Changed days!

Extra taken at the same time looking south east instead of north as in main photo. You can see that the weather looks less than settled...