Of shops, trees and masked elves ...

I can categorically say that it was still night when I left the house to go for the supermarket shopping today - black and wet. There were fewer than ever cars in the car park, and I spent an insane amount of money in an amazingly expeditious fashion. Over breakfast (and I can't tell you how much I enjoy that post-shopping breakfast) I made the mistake of following a thread on Twitter generated by a post of someone I vaguely know: they were talking about what they were bulk buying (but surreptitiously) against a hard Brexit, including first aid kits and water (water, as the rain poured on outside) and I began to wonder if I should be paying more heed. But aside from making sure I have what I need not to run out in a week or two, I decided life's too short. I also decided some of the people posting were decidedly odd.

The sort of background threnody to the morning was provided by Himself's communications with various techy types as he worked to restore the preset for BBC Radio 3 on our internet radio, having somehow deleted it last evening in a moment of careless rapture. As we drove along the Loch Eck road into the mist, his phone rang, and I had to explain to a polite chap that now was not a good moment as we were purling along through the rain in the middle of nowhere and could he phone back later? Fortunately he did, and eventually prevailed, and harmony is restored. See fingertip technology? 

The reason for our drive was to acquire a Christmas tree. We have traditionally gone to the forest to buy directly from the Forestry Commission, and usually there is coffee and a mince pie while you pay in their hut. Today, however, we had to park in a bigger car park, walk back, in one door to choose, out the other, pay and then bring the car back for one of the elves to put it in the boot. I've blipped the elf we've known for years in this rôle - the bells in his cap jingled like the collar of Alastair Campbell's dog.* Having lugged the tree out of the car and into the garden until we're ready to do something with it, I'm beginning to think this may be our last: they're heavy things to stagger through the house with.

The final task of the day was to post a box of presents to family in case we don't make it after all at Christmas. This proved to be a nightmare of inconvenience: the box is large (a wine box), it was wet, the car re-locked itself before I could get into it, the car park at the Post Office has the narrowest spaces imaginable and I'd forgotten, and the Post Office had a long queue in which I stood, my arms round this large box, until my fingers went a delicate shade of blue. I'm grateful to the woman in the car park who assisted me in my attempt to give her enough room to get into her car, mainly by making it possible for me to ignore the frenzied screaming of my collision warning system and the accompanying red lights - and I'm grateful to the former pupil in the queue who recognised me despite the mask and the fact that it must be a good 30 years since I taught her: we had a good laugh at the top of our voices so that the time passed without my having the vapours.

In a final act of lunacy we went out for a walk in the dark and wet and got soaked - but both felt better of it. And then I drank a glass of rather splendid white wine and did my Italian while Himself got the curry ready. It's been a long Friday ...

*An obscure reference to the former Press Secretary to Tony Blair, who takes his dog for a walk every morning and does a live chat on his phone which he posts on Instagram. A beacon of sanity in these troubled times.