Solitary pursuits

We're being reminded once again that the plague season is upon us, that the use of masks that we so laboriously learned and so recently gave up is A Good Thing and perhaps should become a normal part of life, that we should be cautious about crowded places and public transport. And I'm not disagreeing with any of that. However, as I finished off my usual Thursday early morning visit to the supermarket, I couldn't resist taking a sneaky photograph of the first aisle you see when you enter. Do it too obviously and you get funny looks. Or you would, if there was anyone looking at you. My point is that there is no-one there. I was leaving, so it must've been about 9.30am, and it's still dead quiet. I started off this practice when I returned to doing my own shopping after lockdown; I now find I prefer not having to share the store with more than a handful of people.

I started off this morning in the dry, but a minute after taking that first photo I was outside trying to shield the bags in my trolley from the torrential rain that was once more making life difficult. By the time I'd carted the four bags from the car to the back door at home I was drookit again, and the sky was barely light despite the sun's having putatively risen an hour earlier. 

Breakfast segued into coffee segued into making pizzas in the toy Himself got for his birthday - a mini pizza oven. Fear of conflagration meant that he didn't put quite enough fuel in the two burners, but we'll get it right the next time. The pizzas were jolly good - and led to the resolution to go out for a walk instead of cowering indoors watching the rain. (You can tell it's becoming an obsession...)

It was decidedly dusk-like when we set off to walk along the road on the far side of Loch Eck, and on the way back it was ... dark. We walked a couple of miles; we couldn't really see the road at our feet for half of the time; we were completely soaked, including my boots which really need re-proofing; we both felt much better. The other two photos in the collage come from the walk - a cheering and wonderful fire at the edge of the wood, whose heat we could feel from where we stood and whose scent came with us as we walked, and a view of the loch with the lights of the water treatment plant from which our tap water comes.

But really - can we have a stop to the rain sometime in daylight? 

*I've just realised you can see me in the CCTV screen above the veg aisle in the first photo!