Winter approaching ...?

When I left home this morning about 8.20am it was wild, still wet, still quite mild for the time of year. But this afternoon - because I'm trying to be sensible and write this before I make dinner - it feels more like winter, and that wild west wind has a touch of the north about it. It's also been dry for most of the afternoon. The shopping trip was a tad fraught: I knew someone was being sent by our insurance to see if a chip in our car windscreen was going to require radical surgery or simply a repair, and I knew that he was already on his way. What I didn't know was that he lived near Glasgow Airport and was driving round (the office is in Edinburgh) - and so it was that I was still among the vegetables when Himself rang to say the chap had arrived and was sitting in the lane ... Suffice it to say that knowing I had to rush stifled all creativity and I came home with less in my bags than I ever do. We'll find out if I've missed vital items ...

The rest of the morning passed in a flurry of stuff: the car job, putting the messages away, fitting in breakfast, making coffee for Himself and David (round to sort out Advent/Christmas, as you do), going out again to the surgery to drop off a prescription request and then to the Co-op to post birthday cards, buy stamps (the first I've bought since they changed - spent a fortune), buy some shower-spray ...

And then I felt half dead. I actually think that the comparatively sedentary nature of yesterday was bad for me after the intense physical activity in the garden on Tuesday. So what do we do when we feel out of sorts? You got it. We go for a walk in the now bitterly cold but still intermittently sunny afternoon in time to catch the sunset at the coast. And that, O Best Beloved, is what you've got today, yet again. But I loved the sparkle of light on the wet sand as the sun dipped towards Bute.

And now Himself is making dinner noises. I think we have some red wine to finish. And maybe I'll be earlier in bed for yet another morning tradesman. At least I won't be blipping ...