Through the arched window ...*

Strikes me that that title will mean something only to a specific age group and their parents ... but I mustn't rabbit on; it's just struck midnight and I long to be in my bed! I was up good and early to go for the weekly shop (over £90 this week with nothing more exciting than a lamb shank) in the decidedly chilly morning - I was going to go in my sweatshirt but felt the east wind off the sea and added a windproof. It's perishing inside the store anyway - all this bloomin' hygiene with air-con blasting cold winds on you at every turn. 

When I'd had my usual leisurely after-shop breakfast I finished off the sermon (I think) and read the paper (happy to note, btw, that The Scotsman won several of the Scottish Press Association awards last night, including the front page one for the late queen's death.) A rather rushed lunch followed, as Himself had an appointment at the surgery; I dozed over the paper in the knowledge that the sun had not yet appeared.

When it did, I walked up to the church to leave some leaflets about concerts in the Cathedral of The Isles and pottered around enjoying the birdsongy silence and taking photos, including the rather arty one I've used here: I love that view out through the doorway, and it's usually full of cars and/or people. I chatted to several people coming for a service, then met a former colleague on the way home whom I'd not seen for years and who filled me in with dispiriting news about the various health horrors of our the teachers with whom we'd shared our past.

The day ended with a long FaceTime chat with the midge-bitten granddaughter, for whom my heart bleeds, a rather late dinner with some fabulous English asparagus to accompany the salmon, and - after the usual slump in front of the telly - the delight of hearing small feet scuffling in the dead leaves at the end of the back garden under the shed. Oh - and the mecanopsis produced its fourth bloom today, but I saw a single blue petal on the patio this evening as the wind shook the garden.

*A feature of a children's TV story-telling programme in the 70s - you went through one of the windows on the screen to see the subject of the story. I think. I left whatever child to it and went and had coffee in peace!