Gagging for science

I don't quite know what happened to today. When I woke, I had no real plans, no huvtaes that I could think of, no zooming until the evening online service of Compline. I took the chance of a dry, blowy morning to hang out a washing, taking it in again, all dry, just after midday. But then the purple parcel arrived, and I remembered I'd sent for a couple of Covid tests at the behest of Zoe.

For the benefit of those who don't know what I'm talking about, this is because I participate in a clinical study run by King's College London, to help scientists learn more about Covid_19. A couple of days ago something I logged about one of us "not feeling quite right" triggered an email prompting me to send for a test; as I didn't know which one of us (I report for Himself as well) was involved I sent for two. I suppose I was slightly less traumatised by the throat-swabbing than before, but we must have looked a pretty sight, one on either side of the table solemnly following instructions. I still think constructing the cardboard box is the most interesting bit ...

I spent quite a lot of time re-reading background stories to the Salmond/Scottish Government brouhaha. The more I read, the more I seethed. Somehow the original charges have been subsumed in procedural fault-finding, even though apparently everyone involved seems to have accepted that something untoward did happen. Without going too far into the murky recesses of the past 15 or so years, I reflected that any woman of my age will have had to deal with certain assumptions about male behaviour over the years, about what was "permissible" or "negligible", and will have indeed have been advised on the right way to deal with such behaviour - and that never included seeking legal redress, because it was just something we had to put up with. Looking back, and looking at the present, I find myself raging.

As an antidote to it all, I did get out before the rain began - walking up to the church to make recordings for Sunday, on my own because Himself had gone earlier in the car to get some practice in. This gave me the only photo I took all day: the view from the steep driveway up to the church. I'm looking down over what I think of as a very Dunoon house, a huddle of buildings and outbuildings in a hollow above the Blagaidh Burn, surrounded by the trees that are only just beginning to show the first slight green of Spring. Dead leaves are everywhere, a reminder of the year gone by.

So, to sum up: washing, singing, walking and sticking something down my throat and up my nose. Great, eh?