Parlando per Scozia

This title in questionable Italian and the rather random and totally unposed photo really sun up the essence of the day so far (there’s still a good bit to go, but my stamina may not hold for late night blipping). We fulfilled several good things in one fell swoop: meeting up with Lady Findhorn, enjoying a well-cooked and delicious meal (polenta chips …), covering a wide-ranging and eccentric range of conversational topics, shopping after lunch in Valvona & Crolla’s Aladdin’s Cave of Italian goodies, Pecorino cheese (two kinds)…Most enjoyable.

To earn this, as it were, Himself had already taken the girls to school as the sun (yes - sun!) rose over the roofs, and as we caught the bus back to Newhaven we had just enough time to put the perishables in the fridge and phone the father of Anna’s friend who is taking them out guising tonight. Then it was into the car and off to the collection point, taking the trombone with us , driving Catriona to another school in another bit of the city, dropping her off for a band rehearsal, bringing the friend home.

Now we’re collapsed with tea over the awful TV news from Gaza. Hallowe’en, grotesquerie in the dark, remembering the dead in light-hearted rituals - but the real horror is elsewhere.