In the bleak midwinter

Santa's yurt, in the Merrywalks centre, Stroud, which is still under reconstruction. I wonder if any homeless people are allowed to sleep in here at night. The temperature is below freezing most nights now.

I went to Cheltenham to meet friend D. today. All went well apart from when he started going on, in M&S, about how Arbroath smokies aren't kippers, and I said 'does it matter?' and he told me off for being snappy. I have to say, it's easy to be snappy when someone is talk, talk, talking all the time and there's no space left for thought processing!
(For the record, I buy Arbroath smokies for Steve sometimes, because he likes them, and I went to school with someone from Arbroath! I don't think the Declaration of Arbroath mentioned Smokies Vs. Kippers....)

After shopping, Dave and I had a fabulous 3-course lunch in a brasserie. It was from the Christmas menu but contained no turkey, Christmas pudding, or other Christmas heavyweights, for which I was grateful. We walked back to Waterstone's, admired a few stalls in the Christmas market, until I had to rush for my bus.

Got back home to find my new, much larger food.processor had arrived. It has a storage drawer for the blades, even! (I am sure I'll remember what to do with it soon. My last one has been broken for a while, and this was a Black Friday deal...)

Song: https://youtu.be/j9jbdgZidu8
Poignant seeing Kirsty McColl again