Tiring normal

I think today was the closest I've achieved to normality since last March, despite the fact that I was never out at 8.20am to collect the messages in my old life. I think I was energised by that pre-breakfast outing in the bright morning sunshine, because having downed some porridge and tea I went back out again, down the town (ie to the main street in town, which runs just below the crescent in which I live) to the shops, or such of them as are open.

It was quite fun, really - one of the tellers in the bank hailed me as a long-lost friend, alarming the stranger who was actually dealing with me; I bought some frivolous hand cream in Boots and some coloured hair shampoo (decadence!); I wandered round the hardware store till I was inspired to remember what it was I actually needed (this is my habitual way of shopping, which is why I find online shopping quite a challenge). I was just back up near the house, chatting to a neighbour, when Himself phoned to tell me the optician had my specs ready, so I dumped what I'd bought and headed back down the hill again.I felt somehow lively, clean forgetting that I had been a tad droopy post-vaccination, and bounced back home for coffee. 

We had lunch outside, where it got so hot we contemplated putting up the sunshade, but didn't - though I did end up falling uncomfortably asleep on the garden bench. I did some rootling around in the loft for picnic stuff (as you do); I parcelled up ten copies of the poetry books to send off. Having dropped the parcel off at the post office, we drove down to Toward for what we promised ourselves would be a gentle, old people-type walk round the point. That's when I took the photo - the Bute ferry on its way into Rothesay, with a small boat in the foreground and the hills of Arran stretched out beyond. It was hazily cloudy by this time, but you can make out he peak of Goatfell on the left and the jagged outline of Ceum na Cailleach in the centre. There were oyster-catchers burbling on the shore, and it was very peaceful.

By the time we were home again, I was completely panelled. I suddenly realised that for a whole year I've lived, in a way, as if we were on an extended holiday - a self-catering one, involving buying food and cooking it, but a time in which it mattered not to let a day just pass, without A Proper Walk to distinguish it from all the rest. A bumbling day of small errands is, in fact, far more tiring.

And that's something I might not have learned.