Landmarks in the gloom

I was reading today in last Sunday's paper about a couple having a house built that was all glass and heat exchangers, using borrowed light instead of flicking a switch, triple glazing and sunshine apparently meeting all their needs. As I read, I had the lights on - all of them - because though it was one o'clock in the afternoon it was so gloomy outside that without lights - or even with only one light on in the room - I couldn't read. Clearly they weren't living in the west of Scotland.

Earlier, I'd had to make yet another trip to the supermarket because someone had omitted to tell me that we'd run out of tea. The blip is of the latest seasonal offering arrayed on the first shelves you pass on your way in. Morrison's have clearly decided the town of Dunoon is full of Burns Supper supremos, all looking to purchase a haggis that will fill the bellies of an entire Speaker's Club or whatever. I've never seen such large ones actually in plain sight in their unprepared state; they struck me as slightly obscene-looking. I think no-one saw me taking the photo ...

Enjoyable if exhausting workshop this evening with the local drama group. I'd been asked to do some work on voice production and delivery, so we were finding our diaphragms and thinking of bottles filling from the bottom and the role played by accent in projection of the voice. They were willing and cheerful, even those whom I know to have been involved in this kind of thing for ages, and I was enjoying myself - but as I staggered up the road afterwards I remembered why I'd retired from teaching.

It's no country for old women ...