Throbbing?

Another cold, occasionally lethal, wonderfully sunny day, though I think they won't last beyond Friday. After yesterday's excitement and lack of any somnolence on sofas I had a good long lie this morning and wasn't downstairs till after 9am, remembering at the last moment that I had to get a loaf into the machine or there'd be no lunch. I went out after coffee to pick up prescriptions and something for dinner, and was struck, not for the first time, by how deserted our main shopping street is on most days in the winter. Influenced by something blipper Wildwood commented on my post yesterday, I'm using the photo I took at just after twelve o'clock to demonstrate this desertion; there are always people in the supermarket down the road, but not along Argyll Street. So many shops have closed, but I have a feeling that it was always thus midweek - more so now, perhaps, because more people work than back then. I'm standing outside a travel agent, and the big building in mid-field is the Burgh Hall, which has a café as well as exhibitions.

In the afternoon we went to Benmore Gardens and peched up to the top of the hill, carefully avoiding the sudden patches of ice where there had been no sun, or where the vegetation hadn't raised the temperature. The pond and the standing water on the hillside where the tadpoles grow were covered in thick ice, and the ground uniformly hard. We had a delightful visit from the robin that seems to lurk around the refuge at the top of the Chilean garden - he hopped around our feet for a bit and then started pecking quite vigorously at the soles of my trainers - presumably in search of something to eat. I was sad that I'd left my wee bag of wild bird food at home - I had another jacket on. I've added a photo of him sitting beside me as my extra.

The documents for our new holiday booking came through today, so I'll have to do something about travel insurance now. Not tonight, though - we had online Compline and then watched - for the second time, I think - the very last episode of Endeavour. At least - I watched it; Himself slept sporadically. 

The final theme music, the Inspector Morse music from the original series, always takes me back to the 1980s - and there was always that latent sadness about the main characters that leaves me feeling out on the end of an event ... which in turn is a half-remembered quote from Philip Larkin's Whitsun Weddings. 


... Which I'm not going to link to; it's time I wasn't here!