Wednesday: A Nice Change From A Heatwave

A day whose general demeanour can be summed up with the phrase “Torrential horizontal rain and gale force winds”. Nonetheless, John ventured out to fetch Craster kippers for breakfast, which we ate with buttered brown bread and poached eggs (“Eggs again, Matthew?”. A voice.), while watching Thunderbirds (the one with the oil refinery hidden in the pyramid – reflecting world events quite nicely).

The rest of the day was spent relaxing in the house, playing cards, you know, the traditional rainy day standbys. The wind was lashing the sea into the harbour wall, and the wind was shredding the England flag fastened to the mast of a boat. Despite this, I wrapped up and took Shuggie out to do his business on the beach (plastic bag in pocket, of course). The others waved from the window as I tried not to get blown out to sea, and thankfully Shuggie was also keen to get back inside, so he was quick.

For lunch, we all got wrapped up and trekked to the cafe for rolls, tea, chocolate cake, and banana milkshake (in my case). It was only 2 minutes to the cafe, but the wind made it feel like at least twice that.

Leo insisted on buying Shuggie a squeaky rubber chicken, christened Ron, with which he proceeded to annoy the hell out of me. But Shug seems to like it. I’ll have the squeaker out with a Stanley knife when we get home.

In the evening, there was no let up in the weather, so it was DVD time! Harry Potter and his Fiery Gob, followed by Firewall, a ransom-techno-thriller-by-numbers with Paul Bettany (the baddie, surprise surprise) and Harrison Ford, who does a good line in, “If you hurt my family, I’ll hunt you down”-type teeth-grinding.

For dinner, Mairi and I went to Ye Olde Shipppe Hotel, which disappointed with its single veggie dish, but came through with a passable lasagne. My whiting with bacon was very nice, as was my ginger trifle and bottle of Sauv Blanc. We had a very enjoyable conversation about music and how all the music nowadays is rubbish, and the music of those older than us is boring. It was good to touch base and swap thoughts on this subject, because we rarely get a chance to really put the world to rights like that. Goodnight!