Blow, wind! come, wrack! *

Actually today was more about sudden battering showers of hail in a wind that seemed to be as much northerly as westerly, interspersed, particularly in the morning, with tantalisingly brief sunny spells of bright blue sky. All very trying. I wasn't in any hurry to get going this morning, doing my Italian in bed as I used to do all the time and going down so late for breakfast that I'd barely cleared it away when I was making coffee for elevenses. After that, however, I went out - I wanted to buy a nice card to send to the chaps we met on holiday, who'd announced that despite using email they liked to send and receive cards and who sent us a lovely one a couple of weeks back. I even bought the local paper on the day of publication. It's gone up in price - though for the life of me I couldn't tell you what it cost before. Toffs is careless, as a window-cleaner once remarked to my mother - did he see us as toffs? 

We both felt sluggish after lunch, but I was convinced that if I didn't get back to a bit of normal exercise I'd just wither away, so we decided on the old road near Benmore Gardens as offering at least patches of tree-shade from the rain and the hills for the wind. There was a fairly massive flood halfway along - I think I'll put a photo as an extra - but we squidged along a muddy patch beside the old iron fence and managed not to get it over the tops of our trainers - which remain surprisingly waterproof, given the wear they get. I took the photo on our way back. It shows the shell of the old cottage building whose roof memorably chose to collapse just as we were passing it, many years ago now. The whole little settlement there is ruination now, with piles of slates and bits of farm machinery hidden in its derelict rooms, and to me it sums up a great deal of rural sadness as life moves to more central locations and their grounds turn into camper van parks and the remaining buildings to Air B&Bs ... Maybe the lowering sky didn't help.

Back home I wrote to our friends, did a whole tranche of Italian and gratefully downed a glass of rather splendid red wine before consuming Himself's curry. (It's Friday, remember ...). I felt horribly tired, with my legs feeling as if the hinges at the top were worn out. My partner as an alto for the 50-odd years we've been running choirs here is even worse, but I reckon she had the flu-type bug as opposed to the norovirus I had, so has more symptoms to get over. 

But we've got tickets to the last of Catriona's Jazz and Blues nights at The Dean in a month's time and much to look forward to. And next week's weather forecast looks much cheerier ...

*Macbeth