Low ebb

I made a determined effort to get back to some of my normal routine today and managed to go for my supermarket shop before breakfast, before the crowds, before the shelves developed bare patches - for that's what I found last week. It actually felt good going out into the sunny morning - before the strange high cloud that's not quite an east coast haar moved over from the east and remained there until after lunch. I actually had a moment of hilarity at the end of the pasta aisle, where I had to pass between two men - possibly much the same age as I am - each with his trolley, discussing something earnestly. As I approached I was seized by sufficient cheerfulness to say brightly "Excuse me, chaps!" - whereupon the chattier of the two replied "We were discussing particle physics!" Well, what do you say? I said "I know you were - it means nothing to me as I'm an Eng Lit sort of person" ... and yes, it's a weird chat-up line but we ended up laughing sillily about how we were all three of us Weegies, even though we lived here. I left them promising to ask for my poetry collection in Bookpoint - I'm nothing if not brazen.

Thus cheered, I finished my shopping and lugged it down the path to the house before Himself realised I'd come home. Breakfast became coffee and then I don't actually remember what I was doing - discussing how little singing voice each of us had, I think, and feeling tired. Later, when the sun came out, I sat outside and fell asleep, rousing myself to give the front hedge a haircut in the bits where it was sprouting absurdly - but hand trimming with shears is such hard work I felt like lying down on the grass and letting ants crawl through my hair when I'd finished.

Instead we got in the car and went down to the coast for a change of scene. The photo today is the first I took when I got out of the car - the sky looks as if someone had hit a spoon down on a floury surface over the insanely low tide. We walked to the end and back - just over a mile - very slowly, spotting Canada geese honking at the cows in the field and a line of swifts on a wire. It didn't make me any less tired, but goodness it was lovely!

And that was that. We've arranged a rehearsal for Saturday (fingers crossed) and I saw the Waverley meeting a small naval ship on the Firth just opposite our house. And I've been asleep in front of the telly since dinner. 

See the effort I go to to write this on time?