Ubiquitous blethers?

My main impression of the day just ending is one of bleakness, though I'm not entirely sure that there wasn't maybe a blink of sun at some point. But there was that chill south-easterly wind, and Dunoon faces east, so it was making our bedroom chilly and the porch, double-glazed door and all, was baltic. I decided to combat this first thing - I took the long lie that I felt I'd deserved, and I put the bedroom fire on the better to enjoy it, and I caught up on some blips and other social media stuff and then closed my eyes again ...

I couldn't keep it up, however. I was finished and cleared away with breakfast by 10am, put on a washing (managed to find a more respectable spin today, but at the expense of a longer wash on Eco), did my Italian - all before having coffee. Then it was last-minute footering with packing, sweet-talking Himself to see if he had any room for a new sweatshirt (will I need it? I never take them because they're too bulky, but they're so comfy ...) and some cheering words from friends in Funchal about the weather and seeing us soon. 

After lunch I felt that despite the general greyness of the day we should try to get some fresh air, so we walked to Kirn along the East Bay and back again. The photo is of the shops in Kirn, now sadly dilapidated-looking, with only the Cowal Cottage Bakery still functioning. Fifty years ago, when I was living in a council house at the top of Stewart Street on the right, these shops included a post office that was also a greengrocer and the whole village felt just that - buzzing with little shops that people, including me, used. The only supermarket, if you could call it that, was a restricted space in Argyll Street in Dunoon, a mile away with only street parking in a shop that had two steps down in the middle of it. If I went there, I had to leave the pram and baby outside in the street - something we used to do and which now gives me the heeby-jeebies to think of it. I took the photo, of course, for the name of the ex-café; it's been there a while but every time it gives me a funny feeling - Blethers has been me for 20 years or so now, in one forum or another. 

By the time we had climbed the hill back home to our crescent we were both feeling legless, and glad to stop for a chat with a former pupil and daughter of friends who live three doors down. There's much to depress in a seaside town in winter with shops closing right left and centre, but there's something to celebrate in the chance meetings with friends and the random friendliness of strangers in the street - or are they all former pupils in adult guise? 

Right. If I quit now, I could be in bed before midnight - a consummation devoutly to be wished. I'm off.