Rescued by squirrels

I fear it may be winter - today, anyway. It was only 6ºC when I went out to the supermarket at 8am, and again only 7º by the time - late afternoon - when I took this photo. It was also raining quite hard; you can see if you look closely how draggled the squirrel's fur is. Neither Mr PB nor I was wearing enough clothes, though at least we were wholly waterproofed; I think it may be time to break out the winter cagoule. 

After yesterday, I'd been prepared for the usual feeling of let-down today, though the need to get the shopping done before the hordes kept me from thought first thing, and a couple of phone calls and a quick drop-off by a pal (the print of the painting that adorns the cover of my poetry collection) maintained the illusion of a life. I even made soup, soup that we didn't dare have for lunch as we're eating chick-pea curry tonight and the soup was stiff with brown lentils (and cabbage, onion, garlic, cumin and allspice). I had a spoonful to try it: magic.

After lunch, however, I made the mistake of allowing myself to fall asleep, old lady fashion, and when I woke I was ... grumpy. Life seemed pointless, though I don't fancy the alternative. It kept raining, with the odd tantalising glimpse of sun. We had to go out, though neither of us really wanted to. Where would we go? We bickered about this till we were both fed up and actually driving out to Loch Eck side.

And that's where the squirrels came in. This is the bigger, redder one; there was a smaller one, more greyish-red in colour, who was briskly chased away from this feeding box by the bigger one. (I don't think squirrels are as sweet as they look.) A third couldn't get a look in, but skittered amusingly around the branches trying his luck. We stood watching in the rain for so long that we were both chilled to the marrow - but feeling considerably more cheerful. I'm posting an extra of the road home after the rain stopped.

And now I have a glass of wine and the smell of curry is wafting upstairs. Life seems pointful again ...