The day that the rains came – 7 October 2023

The rain was relentless today. Morning until night it never stopped.

All those lucky southerners who had 25º and sunshine enjoyed their Indian summer while us north of Hadrian’s wall had to put up with 10º less and rain. There’s no justice! In addition to that I had a bit of a head cold today. A bit of sunshine would have eased that, but there was none to spare, so I took some vitamin C tablets instead.

There was no point in going out to Red Deer as we’d planned today, so lunch for both of us was banana on toast and a cup of tea. By mid afternoon the sky was lightening and I was feeling better so I reckoned if the improvement was maintained, I’d manage a circuit of St Mo’s and a walk to the shops. Scamp was busy making an apple and blackcurrant pie with our own apples and blackcurrants, but had used up almost all the butter in the fridge, so I took my cue from that and put my boots on and grabbed the A7 with the new lens and went for a walk round the pond and then a gentle walk to the shops to get butter and bread.

The new lens is a strange beast. It gives great separation between the subject and the background, creating almost a 3D feel from the images. It produced the PoD which is a bush with the leaves just beginning to change colour. Other good points from the lens are the ability to use manual focus, almost without thinking and a very positive link with the focusing mechanism. I realise that means very little to most folk, but I might just remember to say that to Alex. He’ll understand!

I did manage to remember to get the butter and a loaf as well at the shops. For some reason the musician Bo Hasson had been in my head recently. I’d looked up the name and found that he died in 2010. Scamp and I both liked his music back in the early ‘70s and the walk back from the shops in the rain was so much more interesting listening to his Lord of the Rings album.

Dinner was Chicken and Mushrooms with Cream and Rice. A Scamp speciality. It was followed by the Apple and Blackcurrant Pie which had the lightest pastry I’ve eaten in a long time.

Watched Strictly and found fault in just about all the competitors dances. We are almost professionals ourselves, you see! I did today’s sketch, ‘Drip’ while occasionally glancing at Strictly. This is how I described the sketch:
“After a day of torrential rain I feel the prompt for today is quite appropriate. A late afternoon walk gave me plenty of time to observe the drips forming and falling from the trees and to enjoy the feeling of them running down the back of my neck! Yes, that was sarcasm.”

Later we watched the F1 GP from Quatar. One of those stupidly over complicated sprint races. I’m not a fan, as I’m sure you have gathered.

Tomorrow we may go out if the weather continues to improve or we may stay in if it doesn’t. That’s as much as I’m willing to say.

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