Back for some of the old normal

 

BUT... THERE'S GOING TO BE PEOPLE THERE...

Some readers will be aware that, pre covid, going to live entertainments played a big part in my life.  Music and comedy gigs, plays, sports events.  And that Barbara and I have been enthusiastic audience members at the Fringe for a few years now.  Then 2020 came and did it's thing.  My last experience of live music was on the eleventh of March last year.  I won't be able to say that for much longer.  Hopefully.  Maybe.  

There have been sports events with crowds recently.  There have been gatherings of one sort or another in streets and squares.  But there have also been lots of vaccinations, and the covid infection rate, after a surge upwards, appears to be in decline again.  Yet, despite regular trips to the shops, the idea of sitting down in a building with strangers feels ever so slightly weird.  This may be because I have been a fan of social distancing long before it became popular.  Because people.

My calendar tells me there are nine events booked for the rest of this year.  Four of those are carryovers, dates rearranged from one or more postponements last year.  Five I have booked recently.  Four in August, one next month in the Jazz and Blues Festival.  It feels like there should be more, and also that that's too many.  But there are Fringe tickets being made available next week, decisions to be made.  Book now, while there's availability, or wait until we see how we feel after our first gig?  

I already know the answer.  Unable to resist seeing what's on sale, my brain will say that we need to see her, we need to see him, that there are plenty of free days in August to fill.  That this is what we missed last year.

And that gig in less than three weeks from now will confirm I was right.  There will be people.  But there will also be guitar.  It's the music that counts.  Bring on the blues.

The boots are back, the body isn't

 BOOTS BACK

I may not be pestering people for money this year.  Kiltwalk remains hit by the pandemic and the unknowns it continues to bring into our lives.  There was a virtual Kiltwalk at the end of April, much like the one I took part in last September (https://baclitter.blogspot.com/2020/09/i-did-it-honest-post-with-evidential.html), but that was too early in the year for me.  I'd done no serious walking since that trek down the Water of Leith Walkway so I was in no shape to tackle anything beyond going to the shops.

There is still a plan to hold a 'proper' Kiltwalk, with a large crowd of kilties assembled.  That's set for late August.  But in Glasgow only.  At the moment they haven't even opened registration as there's still a high likelihood that it won't be able to take place.  But if it does, and logistics of travelling through in time can work for me, then I'd be tempted to give it a go.  Or perhaps, given that the covid situation is going a bit better at this end of the M8, it might even be switched to Edinburgh.  The final option would be another virtual walk.  Whichever it might be, if any of these variations do end up taking place, I want to be ready for the possibility.  Which means getting the boots on and doing some miles.

I'm late starting out, at least compared to last year,and the end target date is nearer as well, so I need to get on with it.  I began last week with an easy route of less than ten kilometres, which took just over ninety minutes.  A reasonable time, but I was pushing myself.  Too early is it turned out.  The next day I felt not exactly ill, but a bit shaky, a bit achey and a bit slow.  I felt... old.  Which is hardly surprising - I'll be sixty five next week. Today I walked a fourteen kilometre route that I've used as practice a few times in the past coupe of years, so I know what a good time over the distance looks like.  But I took my time today, hoping not to feel quite so old tomorrow.  The end time was over fifteen minutes slower than my best time over the same route last year.  Oh well.

I'll keep on getting the boots out regularly over the coming months.  Even if there's no end purpose it's still an activity I enjoy, and should be doing me good.  But I think I also need to recognise the effects of the ageing process, the general slowing down and steady erosion my physical abilities.  Maybe comparing my efforts with previous times I've set isn't the best approach for a pensioner...

The bushy tailed bayn of my life

WHAT'S GREY, FLUFFY AND  A WEE BUGGER?

Fifteen years.  From a narrow shrub, not even a metre high, to a huge bush that was a good bit taller than me, and several times wider.

Five years.  From cutting to destruction.  Bloody squirrel!

In 1999 I planted a bay tree in the front garden of our old house down south.  In front of the dining room window, at the top of the wee rockery, beside next door's fence.  It grew.  And grew.  And grew.  Without much help from me it has to be said.  It became a supplier of a culinary ingredient, and another one of the bits of greenery that demanded attention from my shears during the summer.  By 2014 it was massive and the trimming becoming more severe with each year simply to stop it blocking the light into the room behind.

Then we were moving, to a flat.  Downsizing, to a new city, a new country.  My old city, my old country, place of my birth.  Reluctant to lose my ready supply of bay leaves, I took five cuttings, and potted them, months ahead of the move.  When the time came to pack up I chose the two fittest looking specimens and shifted them up to Scotland.  Each found it's way into its own huge red pot on the balcony, and both started to grow.  

For five years they provided all the bay leaves I could need, they grew taller and denser and looked healthy and hopeful.  That winter we noticed a grey squirrel visiting the balcony frequently.  Not quite what we'd expected on the fifth floor, but it's probably nothing to a squirrel.  It was something to Zoe, our cat, who was visibly annoyed at the presence on the other side of the glass.  Their stand offs provided a few decent photos.

Our visitor seemed to favour the right hand side of the balcony, and would sometimes be seen emerging from the foliage there, a mess of geraniums, tired herbs and the bay tree.  But it wouldn't be doing any harm there, would it?  Would it?  

I hadn't needed a bay leave for a while.  When I went for one I usually went to the plant on the left, which had grown that bit bigger than the other.  On this day I went to the right, and found the leaf brittle.  On inspection I found that the whole plant, although visually little different, was now a deceased bay tree.  A little more digging, both literally and metaphorically, made it come away easily from the dead roots, and the soil was no longer as it had once been.  It now shared its space with hundreds of wee pellets of old newspaper.  And a few peanut shells.  It had been squirreled.  

I still have one of my bay trees, and will look out for it a bit more.  In time maybe it will give me another cutting so we can have two again.  And I will be on the lookout for flashes of furry grey bushiness.

Squirrels.

Cute, eh?

Little bastards!

Easily impressed? - Childhood memories

 

WHERE THAT PLACE USED TO BE

The combination of prompt from my 365 project, asking me to think about a place from my childhood that is now long gone, and the recent news that the Jenners department store is to close, has dragged me off into a roomful of childhood memories.  Jenners, for readers not from Edinburgh, is, was, a big department store on Princes Street, across from the Scott Monument and just a short walk from Waverley Station.  Jenners was THE department store, Scotland's equivalent of Harrods I suppose, and is the last to fall of the big shops I recall from growing up in the city during the sixties, the places that were major players in the city centre retail sector of the period.

It's no surprise that Jenners will be gone.  Even without the impact that covid has had on shops the demise of the department store was already well under way.  John Lewis may, or may not, carry on once the doors reopen, but it has always been the new kid in town, and plays no part in the memories of the time I'm taking myself back to.  What follows is largely written from my memories of the period, so it's an unreliable memoir, but there were a couple of facts that I checked up on, one of which came as a big surprise.

Little Blyth remembers six of these behemoth stores in and around the Old and New Towns.  But I'll begin with an honourable mention with an out of towner, because it ties in well with the place I'll be concluding with.  There was a big Co-op department store in Leith, on Great Junction Street, where I recall being taken for my school uniform sometimes.  Two technological marvels fascinated my wee boy self.  The x-ray machine I put my feet in to see if shoes fitted correctly.  And, best of all and a performance I could have watched for hours if I hadn't been dragged protestingly away, the pneumatic tube system that whooshed off the money my mother had handed over to the salesperson, and returned with change and receipt.  Like magic to a six year old.

But back to town.  Jenners was always top of the pile, and far too pricey for a young working class family to frequent.  With two annual exceptions.  In the run up to xmas we'd go in, not to buy, but look in wonder at the central floor space where stood an enormous xmas tree, flashily decorated, extending up and up through the surrounding galleries, topping out around the second or third floor.  There was nothing else quite like it (and this was long before the trashy commercialisation of "Edinburgh's Christmas" we've now got and which I'm grateful to covid for sparing us this time round).  The second visit came after the festivities, and the bargain hunting opportunities of the January Sales.  I'm sure I received some late presents via that route...

A block along from Jenners, similarly placed on the eastern corner, was Forsyth's not quite as big, not quite as grand.  I have no real memories of the place, except it was always known as "Big Forsyths", to distinguish it from "Wee Forsyths", a (mens?) clothes shop a few doors away and a totally different company.  Completing the Princes Street trio was Binns, at the West End.  In 1961, like Jenners and Forsyths to the eastern end of the street, it was handily placed for a train station, the old Caley station that fell in the Beeching cuts a few years later.  Binns was mostly famous as a meeting place, specifically under the clock, as a handy landmark where you could arrange to hook up with friends.  "See you at Binns" was a common phrase at the time.  It was Frasers department store until fairly recently (but always 'Binns' to those of a more mature years), and it's lovely to see that the current restoration is bringing back the clock.  It's to be a Johnny Walker Whisky Experience centre I think - whatever that is.

Two of my remembered shops were on The Bridges, the road that leads up to the old town across the top of Waverley.  Patrick Thomson was never know as such, but simply called PTs.  It occupied most (all?) of the eastern side of North Bridge, a huge sprawling place which, again, I recall little about.  My main memory is buying coffee there (my parents favoured Blue Mountain mostly) in the early seventies.  Further up the road, on the South Bridge corner of Chambers Street, was the place which provided the aforementioned surprise.  My memory tells me there was a department store there called J&R Allan, and that it had the best food hall in the city.  Google tells me that Allans closed down in 1953, three years before my birth.  So what am I remembering?  Was it a different shop which was as Frasers was to Binns - everybody still used the old name, no matter what it had become?  Or is there some bit of information I'm missing?  Who cares?

Finally (yes, finally) the department store memory that prompted this whole stream of recollections.  All of the above were very traditional places, old fashioned even then, with formal Victorian and Edwardian facades.  But in 1960, if you walked out of Binns and walked up Lothian Road to Tollcross, you could find the alien spaceship of department stores.  Goldbergs, set well back from the road, looked so so different to anything else in town.  The huge frontal glass area was a beautiful, brutal counterpoint to the stuffy establishment, with dramatic sculptures to each side of that wall of light.  I don't recall what my parents might have bought there, and I imagine that the goods on sale weren't all that different to those in the places mentioned above.  What I do remember was the technological wonder that surprised and delighted an easily impressed kid.  Moving stairs.  Escalators.  It was like entering the future.  And this was before we had Doctor Who!  Simpler times.

The Goldbergs building was demolished in the nineties.  There's a big block of flats there now, with a restaurant at the front where the steps up to the big glass front doors would have been.  But oftimes when I see that block from the Tollcross junction I find I have Goldbergs in my head, and my child self who marvelled at being able to stand on stairs that carried me to the next level.  Escalators don't impress me nowadays, but surprising technology still does, so maybe that wee boy remains within.

Truly Sadly Weepy

 

NEEDS INTRO ABOUT COMING FROM 365!!!  AND THEN EDIT POST

A recent 365 Project prompt told me to watch a movie that makes me cry, and then write about the tear-jerking scene.  A seemingly simple task, but I struggled to think which films would definitely render me lachrymose.  It had to be one that I remembered making me tearful, but hadn't seen so often, or so recently, that the desired result would be lacking.  

It must be a couple of decades since I last watched Truly, Madly, Deeply, so there was an element of risk in my choice.  What if it didn't work on me the way it once had?  What if I'd misremembered how sad it was (and I am only too aware of how unreliable my memory is at times...)?  What if there were no tears?

I needn't have worried.  It remains as powerfully emotional (and emotionally manipulative!) as it felt twenty plus years ago.  The prompt suggests I write about 'the' scene that made me cry.  But there were at least six moments that brought tears into my eyes, from the first few minutes right through to the closing moments.  It as convincing a portrayal of grief, and eventual redemption, as I can recall.

But first a brief synopsis for anyone reading this and unfamiliar with the movie.  A 1990 film, set in contemporary London, starring Juliet Stevenson as Nina and Alan Rickman as Jamie.  Nina is grieving, to the exclusion of all else in life, the death of her partner, Jamie.  Neither her therapist or concerned friends and family can bring her out of her self pitying state.  Jamie suddenly returns, as a ghost, and lives with her, which restores Nina to life.  But there are frustrations to living with a dead person, she meets a good man but is unable to commit, until she can accept it's time to say goodbye and move on.  Classic tear-jerker territory, but raised above the risk of melodrama by brilliant performances and an excellent script.  And it's often as funny as it is sad.

In one of the earliest scenes Nina is about to leave her office, but is held back by boss Sandy (Bill Paterson).  He comments on her behaviour, wants her to come for drinks with the crowd, clearly cares about her a lot.  And she shuffles out of the door, unable to explain, unable to deal with the kindness, finding sadness the easier option.  It was easy to imagine feeling the same way in those circumstances, and empathy is a powerful emotional string puller.

At her therapist Nina is in full on blub mode, tears, snot, crumpled face, angry with everyone and everything and Jamie more that anyone else.  Who could resist the power of that face?  It is where we do not want to be.  She admits to hearing his voice, constantly, telling her to get on with the mundane acts of her life, like locking the back door at night.  A presence both there and not there.  

Then Jamie comes back into her life.  She is playing piano, hears a cello accompaniment and smiles at the memory.  Except that the strings continue when the keys cease to sound.  We see Jamie in the background, and, turning round, so does Nina.  It is a moment of disbelief, of joy at reconnection, of grief at knowing that this cannot be real.  And yet it is, he is solid (albeit constantly cold) yet certainly dead.  And she can wallow in something more joyful at last.

All of these pile one on another in the first thirty minutes, but my other welling up moments come towards the end of the film.  Goodbyes and new beginnings.  The most moving moment of all (and one which has brought the tears out as I recall it) sees Jamie reciting a poem in Spanish, with Nina translating each one into English as he proceeds.  It is an excerpt from La Muerta (The Dead Woman) by the great Chilean, Pablo Neruda, and each successive line becomes harder for Nina to relate as she builds towards another flood of tears, this time in Jamie's (dead) arms.

The final lines of the verse are

"my feet will want to march

to where you are sleeping

but I shall go on living"

- my bottom lip trembled, my own tears joined Juliet's, and it was clear that this moment was pivotal, was the chance for her to finally accept the life she had, leaving the one now lost to her.

My final two moments were less dramatic, less emotionally draining, for the tears were part happiness now.  When Mark (Michael Maloney) persuades her to talk about the barrier she has put up, and shows his understanding of her situation, it feels like a release.  And the closing moments, when Mark comes to collect her from that 'terrible flat' and in the window stands Jamie, sad/happy to see her go, surrounded by his dead mates who all wave the couple off into the night.  

Letting go, accepting loss, returning to real life, are bittersweet moments in life.  My tears were for Nina and Jamie, and Mark, and all the people who have to pass through such moments in their lives - which means all of us.  And for myself, for I am incapable of watching, or reading about, such situations without imagining myself placed in them and wondering how I'd react.  As Nina and Mark and even as Jamie (except I can't play the cello...).  It's a tribute to Stevenson and the late Rickman, and to writer and director Anthony Minghella, that there were times when the emotions felt as real to me as they did to the characters.  Experiencing these moments by proxy flexes our emotional muscles without risk, reminds us what it means to be human.  That's what stories are for.

(Footnote.  I had completely  forgotten the poetry scene, and the strange coincidence it brought forth.  My final choice of weepy movie lay between TMD and Il Postino, in which one of the central characters is a fictionalised version of Neruda.)

Water of Leith Dog Rescue on Ice

 ICE DOG

For today's lockdown exercise I decided to walk down to The Shore and see if there was still much snow and ice around there.  On my way I heard the sirens of the emergency services coming my way and seconds later two fire engines swooshed past, and I hoped it wouldn't be anything too serious.  When I got near The Shore I could see a crowd assembled at the corner and along the bridge, with the fire engines parked by the river.  So I walked round to the opposite  bank to see what the fuss was about.

There was a wee dog scampering about on the thin layer of ice that covered most of the river.  A fireman had lowered a hammock-like device and was throwing bits of food down to try and tempt the agitated looking canine in to be lifted up.  He did get him once, but the dog immediately fell out again, fortunately without breaking the ice.  And after that there was no way he was going to get back in!

The above photo was taken during the almost-rescue, with the creamy coloured dog in the red rescue device.  Above, beside the lamppost, is the concerned owner in grey scarf and blue sweater.  

This wider shot shows the fire engines attending and, most importantly, the Fire Service Water Rescue Unit on the left.  They would be the guys to provide the happy ending to the story.  By this time there was a sizeable audience along the wall of the bridge (out of shot to the right) and on the bank where I was.   We're all a bit desperate for entertainment in lockdown, and this was as good as it gets right now.

I started taking a video when the Water Rescue pairing went into action, not knowing how long it might take or what the outcome would be.  Apologies for the poor quality, as I only had my phone with me, and there was a bit of snow, a bit of sun flare, and wobbly concentration on my part when I was looking directly at the action more than I was my screen.  But it's good enough to give some idea of how events panned out.  Sound up for the spontaneous crowd noise when the deed is done, when the dog is finally grabbed, and the touching handover to relieved pet owner.

You can watch the video on YouTube by clicking here.

Conspicuous Compulsion

 CONSPICUOUS COMPULSION

Addiction is a terrible affliction.  In most cases it'll not just harm the addict themselves, sometimes ending their life prematurely, but can often cause huge problems for the people around them, or even to complete strangers.  Clinical addiction is a disease that needs to be treated.

But when we say there's something we "can't do without" we don't usually refer to the kind of chemical dependency that addiction covers.  We mean things that feel as if they make our lives better in some way, be it exercise or chocolate, and there are times when those feelings become near obsessive, compulsions we can't shake off without a sense of having given up.  Over the past year of lockdowns and a life devoid of much in the way of social interaction I've found that having a few obsessions has been not just benign, but beneficial.  So here's four that have made my pandemic life a little bit better, helping to maintain my physical health, mental health, emotional health, and... whatever.

Firstly, with most of our entertainment now online, it would be easy to slip into full on couch potato mode and allow my fitness to decline.  I, like so many people nowadays, wear a step counter on my wrist, set to a target of eleven thousand steps each day.  I could easily accept that, with all the guidance telling me to stay at home and there not being anywhere to go anyway, I should accept that not hitting that target every day is inevitable.  I was forced to when  we were ill and had to self isolate.  But once I was able to get out again, and my fitness gradually came back, I soon regained the habit of wanting to hit my target.  Every day.  With the good weather we had in Spring and Summer it was no problem to get back into it, albeit less so in recent months.  

But I kept going because it's become an obsession.  Each day adds to the streak, and as that grows so does my determination to extend it to 365 consecutive days.  There are times when it becomes more chore than challenge, when it's cold and wet and there's not even a reason to go to the shop.  But I've kept it going, even if it means the hall carpet gets a battering some days, and that a few days ago I only hit the magic 11k figure about 23.45.  Obsession does that. 

My other must-do daily target is writing 750 words into the fittingly named website 750words.com.  That's something I've now done for over 1100 days in a row.  But with so little in my life to write about  it too was becoming a chore.  So I've upped the stakes.  I found a list of 365 (there's that number again) writing prompts, giving a daily suggestion from which to create a story or poem or description or, well, whatever you feel like writing.  I started on the first of January and already it's become an action I MUST undertake.  Each night I look at the next day's subject and start thinking about it.  Each day I am forced to think creatively, so use bits of my brain that might otherwise lie dormant.  The resulting prose and verse has been, shall we say, of inconsistent quality (OK, a lot of it's shite...), but in this case it really is the taking part that's more important than the winning.  

My emotional life is doing just fine, has perhaps even benefited from so much time at home, as Barbara and I have been reminded that we do quite like each other.  But you can't get everything you need from one person, so it's good I have this wee face in my life.

My daily life needs time with Zoe.  Be it as a playmate, a lapcat or a solid lump on my stomach in bed, Zoetime is another must-have.

Which leaves the whatever.  A bit of sweetness.  Most nights, before I go up and brush my teeth, a spoonful (or so...) of chocolate spread seems to find it's way from jar to mouth.  It's like I'm not involved in the process.   

Compulsion, obsession, Pavlovian habit, call it what you will, but it's what helps keep me fit and happy.  What do you do?

A beautiful mind

 

Until a few years ago, if you'd said the name Hedy Lamarr to me I'd have vaguely recalled a beautiful Hollywood actress of black and white movie days, and a running gag in Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles.  Then I listened to the opening track of Findlay Napier's excellent album, VIP : Very Interesting Persons.  The title is 'Hedy Lamarr', the melody memorable, the lyrics simple.  

"You know your place, You're just another pretty face."

"Every time the lights shine down, you disappear"

"If only they'd seen beyond that silver screen."

The sleeve notes hint at the person behind the image, saying she invented the process which became Bluetooth and WiFi.  Clearly there was much, much more to Ms Lamarr than my scanty knowledge even hinted at.  So I did a bit of reading, watched a documentary, and felt sad for the frustrations she must have suffered in her life.

Lamarr, originally Hedwig Kiesler from Vienna, was once touted as the most beautiful woman in the world, a big name Hollywood star who never really got the roles her thespian talents deserved.  She achieved a major success as Delilah to Victor Mature's Sampson in 1949, but was mostly typecast as the femme fatale because of her East European accent and astonishing beauty (and her refusal to have sex with the powerful men who dominated the industry).  As the Napier lyric says, "too beautiful".

Bored with the limited demands acting made on her, she frequently turned to inventing.  Early in World War 2 she and composer George Antheil came up with a radio guidance technology for naval torpedoes that would be impossible for the enemy to jam.  But it wasn't adopted, partly because the  insular military was guilty of not-invented-here syndrome, partly because a (mere) woman was involved in it's origins.   Their invention would eventually be adopted in the fifties, and became the basis for the aforementioned protocols we all use now in our everyday lives.  She and George were finally, posthumously, inducted into the national Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.

There is so much more to the remarkable Lamarr's life, but those frustrations I mentioned must have a huge influence on the way she saw the world.  Would such a major talent have had greater recognition in today's world?  Hollywood is still misogynistic at times, as the #MeToo revelations have shown, but has still seen huge improvements since the forties and fifties where the stars were so much more closely controlled by the studios.  It isn't hard to imagine Lamarr becoming a much bigger name, and a director, in the twenty first century.  And that the intellectual resources and access to collaborators the internet can provide would have seen her practical imagination and inventiveness able to thrive.  A modern Hedy could find it easier to overcome those frustrations.

Lamarr is largely remembered as a beautiful face, a beautiful body, a beautiful woman.  Findlay and others are doing their bit to have her best known for having a beautiful mind.

Hope in the thaw

 

OLD GAMMON OR NEW EGGS?

The crows nest, silhouetted against the pale blue above the horizon, still sits firmly perched amid the uppermost branches of the tree before me, a few shrivelled brown leaves clinging to a pretence of a life, no buds yet apparent.  The nest is silent testimony to the industry and construction skills of the birds who built it, and who return year after year to renew their family.  Their time will come.

If I look down I see more green than white now.  There was a moderate snowfall a couple of days ago, covering the graveyard in brightness, setting the gravestones into sharp relief, making them more real and a stronger reminder of the life events behind those monuments to death.  It rained yesterday, the resultant slush then turned into a treacherous low-coefficient topography.  Today only sunshine which, despite the chilled air, steadily removes the watery blanket, only a few stubborn patches of shade putting up a fight.  It's a beautiful day, a day to walk and breathe and enjoy.

It's the First of January.  An arbitrary human marker in the natural flow of the seasons.  A marker of plans and promises, a time of recounting and foretelling.  But who dares make predictions for 2021 after the indecipherable potage that was 2020?  There are few certainties, but that does not mean that we are without hope.  Last night marked the end of one dark saga, our ties to the EU finally snapped after years of lies and bigotry and uncertainty.  The full implications of the Gammon Curtain will be made plain in the coming months.  

But the leaves will return to the naked branches I look out on, the green will flourish and the cemetery adopt it's summer character for yet another cycle of planetary movement.  Diamonds might be forever, but winter, and the gammonist regime, are not.  This was not a direction Scotland chose, but, like the crows, we can rebuild our nest and give birth to something new. 

 The crows will be with us again, there will be eggs, and new life and hungry mouths poking skywards.  They do not need other birds to tell them what to do.  

We're not going on a summer holiday

 

SORRY CLIFF, YOU NEED TO CHANGE THE SONG

"We're all going on a summer holiday" sang Cliff Richard in '63.  It wasn't a song to play in 2020.  But was that really so awful?  The idea of the annual holiday away is, in historical terms, a very recent phenomenon

I admit we were lucky, having been able to make trips to Dublin and London, and three times through to Glasgow, for music gigs in January and February.  So I can count those pre lockdown excursions across the city boundary on the fingers of one hand.  And, on the other hand, I can do the same for the rest of the year.  Two of those were brief crossings into East Lothian, when I was practising for Kiltwalk.  Another two went in the other,  a mile or so into West Lothian, to pick fruit on a farm.  And the last one?  That was our summer holiday.

In mid September, on Barbara's birthday, we gave the car a rare outing and headed off to Dunbar - a massive distance of 30 miles...  The sun shone upon us, the sky stayed universally blue, and social distancing was observed by all.  We ate high tea in a courtyard, walked along the harbour, watched the waves hitting the seawall, enjoying the simple pleasure of not being where we were the rest of the time.  Then we drove to North Berwick, sat atop the headland looking out to sea and reading our books.  And home again.

Do I feel short changed?  Not at all.  It was a glorious day, enjoyable for the most obvious of reasons, and as much a provider of fond memories as Lisbon or Rome would have done.  

Nor do I feel hard done by being restricted not just to the city, but to my own locale much of the time.  There's been time to notice new things, explore previously ignored side streets, enjoy this place in a way I might not have done before.  (OK, it helps to be living in one of the most beautiful cities in the world...)  

I sometimes feel bad about thinking this way, and am cognisant of the dangers of sounding smug, because so many people have had such a terrible time in 2020, and that situation looks like continuing deep into the new year.  But if you're fortunate enough not to have been hit by the health and financial and stress problems that the pandemic has dumped on society, then it isn't that hard to adjust your mental horizons to feel no sense of loss at the lack of any new physical ones.  We humans are adaptable creatures after all, it's what makes us such evolutionary successes.   In challenging times we can find surprising ways to meet the challenge.