So, then. Pressing on…
Trouble is, it’s not been much of a day for pressing on with anything, not really it hasn’t. Cold, damp, dismal, and grey. A bit like being in a snow globe with the sulks on.
When, after a struggle, I groped my way to wakefulness it was with a minor, croaky curse. At 08:15 I was fifteen minutes late phoning the doctor’s appointment line.
“I’m sorry. There’s nothing left today,” the nice lady said.
“Oh dear. What should I do?”
After going through a number of options I settled for a firm booking on Wednesday February 17, though I was advised to phone on Monday morning to see if there’s a cancellation to his daily bookings.
“If it’s a real emergency I’ll be able to do something better,” she said.
“Oh, no. Thanks. I’m not wanting to press the emergency button.”
And so I had a couple of cups of scalding hot coffee and three small slices of buttered toast. And another long look out of the window.
The day didn’t improve.
I had to slip outside shortly afterwards to move my car out of range of the scaffold removers next door, who were pulling down fittings, planks and selected poles with great aplomb and even greater bish bash bosh noise. I like to keep my car well out of the way of bish bash bosh.
And then I settled down to a long morning of grizzle and groan, gazing out at a wet, inhospitable world and wishing I still had my ankle-length waterproof Barbour stock coat and the big broad-beamed hat that went with it. I know it made me look like a portly old wally-man but it did let me out of the house for a little while in all weathers.
Lunch called for something from the comfort range so I knocked together oven-hot onion bagels with slices of Edam cheese, garnished with thick-sliced tomatoes and an artistic squiggle of generic salad cream, all dressed with fresh ground black pepper and sea salt. Nice, it was.
“You have a great dobble of salad cream on your chin. And another on your moustache,” said Graham, helpfully.
“Thanks. I’m saving them for later.”
