Shopping expeditions

It's a whole fortnight since I've been food shopping, and something had to give... So after what didn't feel like nearly enough sleep I was up and out in the darkness to the supermarket. Mercifully the vegetable mountains were already partially in place for the next couple of days, and after an hour and parting with the best part of a hundred smackers I staggered to the car with my wonky-wheeled trolley and escaped.

A couple of hours later we were out shopping again, but it couldn't have been more different. For many years now we've had a tradition of having venison fillet for our Hogmanay dinner - and of having our friends round to share it with us, so I'm hoping we all test negative tomorrow or we'll be eating venison and roasted veg for a week! But collecting the venison is also part of the fun, as the stalker from whom we buy it lives and has his now much expanded business up Glen Lean, a few miles out of Dunoon. We drove up his forestry road, collected the order, then parked beside some logs and went for a walk in the total contrast to the city walks of the last few days. I took the photo up the track as we were turning back - we'd not had lunch and were a tad peckish - so you can see the head of the glen, with the dense forest which isn't quite mature enough yet to harvest. I have decided that I'm allergic to evergreens (have I mentioned this?) and we're both a bit sniffy tonight; the trees this year are festooned with various lichens and the scent is marvellous, but I dunno ... A patch of cloud is drifting towards us, to manifest itself in a fine drizzle for a bit, a buzzard has just sailed overhead, and the noise of the burn is diminishing the further up we climb. 

After lunch and a very brief read of the paper I successfully set up my Christmas present from Himself, an Apple watch. I didn't feel up to this when I was distracted among family, and even getting it out of the exquisite packaging was quite a challenge. I struggled a bit fitting the strap on (basic stupidity, that bit) but the actual pairing with my phone was a dawdle - you just hold the watch close to the phone, centred on a phone-shaped square that appears on the phone screen, and watch as a magic fuzzy blue thing appears and fizzes till it's done!

All very exciting. I may use it as blip material some day, but so far I've sent two dictated text messages on it using Siri as well as timing the cooking of my dinner....

Oh: it also tells the time!

Extra is of the sign outside the venison purveyor's shed.