Wot I Did On The Solstice….

….not a lot.
I’d had a really tiring couple of days. Friday I bussed into town to get some shopping, banking and bill-paying done, and managed to miss the bus back (I was sitting on the library wall some yards down from the bus stop, the bus had no number or destination and was coming from the wrong direction, I was too tired to get up and haul myself+bags down the street to see if it was the right bus). So I had to spend nearly two hours hanging around waiting for the next bus. It wasn’t entirely wasted time – I bumped into Son, who had just got into town for an evening out, had a good chat; went into the tiny art gallery attached to the library where a local artist was exhibiting, got talking to her about life drawing and may have got some life-modelling work for B; and because my arms were nearly dropping off from carrying two bags of shopping, bought myself a shopping trolley.
With that purchase, I appear to be on my way to being an old woman – only old women use shopping trolleys. As I’ve already recorded, B & I took the community bus on Wednesday night to get our shopping; it turned out to be more or less a mobile pensioners’ club – the bus driver had to search for his ticket price list, as he had never carried anybody who didn’t have a bus pass. One of the old ladies (it was all old ladies) was deaf and barely mobile – the bus collected her right from her door, with a volunteer helper assisting her on. On the way back, there were actually a couple of other paying customers – a young woman and a 10-year old – but this was evidently not the norm. I shouldn’t mind elderly people – I’m nearly one myself – but the journey reminded me depressingly of the old peoples’ homes I’ve seen. Waiting for Godot, in real life.

Anyway, Friday left me utterly exhausted; Saturday morning, I walked into the village and back to get a paper, which was probably not the best thing to do. By the evening, I was fighting to stay awake. B was watching the footie anyway, so I sloped off to bed at nine. Took my new iPod with me, spent an hour listening to music (Leonard Cohen mainly) and watching the resident Red Kite hunting over the hill beyond the window before sleeping. Woke up at some dim time (didn’t see what hour) and it was still twilight outside. Up here, we don’t get proper darkness around the Solstice, just all-night twilight; “sunrise” is just a gradual lightening of the sky. And it was clouded over, so there seemed little point in getting up to watch something that I couldn’t see anyway. So I slept again, until nearly nine.

So that’s wot I did on the Solstice. But the shopping trolley will be useful. Even though I am NOT an old woman.