Cold northerly wind...

10th May 2020 (Sunday)     06.30 ... ... the weather forecasters are ‘bang

Elie harbour beach.

on’ with the forecast;   there’s a brisk fresh wind from the North and cold and overcast with occasional spits and spots of rain .... not a day for the bike.   I have a braw warm job this morning;  an ironing that’s been building up over the warm days, and an old film or two on the tele.    I might go for a walk to the beach later in the day. 
  

09.00    It is a cauld wind today;  it’s very very cauld  on the bits that aren’t well wrapped up.    If Rip van Winkle woke up this morning, after his long nap,  he’d turn over and go back to sleep;  it’s like the middle o’ winter.   Not a morning for this boy being out and about very much.    Oh I’ve been for the paper and down to the harbour then home by way of Kinneuchar;  it is definitely not a morning for going out on the bike:  correction – it’s not a morning for going out at all!   At least the sky is beginning to brighten up but it’s not forecast to get very warm today.

11.30    This is morning coffee time;  immediately after Myra phones (Myra phones her boys every morning) I have my ‘morning coffee’  it’s the nearest we can get to coffee in ‘arbour ‘ouse.    We were talking (Myra and I) about when the three of us (and ‘Sooper Dawg’) walked the Shell Bay woods.   The woods are criss - crossed by numerous wee paths which cross each other and Jim knew where every single one of them went and

Gannets fishing in the bay.

which path to join to get to ‘wherever’.     If I was in the woods on my own I just blundered along until I came to one of the firebreaks.   We had a wee reminisce this morning.   I think not being able to visit Jim is one of the hardest things to cope with at this time;  this must be really hard on Myra and the boys, and on all families who have loved ones in Care Homes around the world.

It is a nice morning now but still very windy and cold.   I was thinking of getting the bike out and going round the villages and into the estate after my coffee break.

17.00    I went up Ferry Road to the estate as planned;  the coldest bit was going up Ferry Road to the North Lodge... the wind was into my face on that bit:  once inside the estate it was not bad.    You know how I am always going on about speaking to folk well today I met Matthew and Sylvia who were also on their bikes going through the estate.    Actually I have seen Matthew loads of time when he’s out jogging but didn’t know his name until today.   I am meeting and talking to people more just now than I would in a normal holiday season   In the normal holiday season the villages are too crowed  and I tend (subconsciously) to go into visitor mode;  i.e. I am the visitor (in my

Elie Estate road... with Matthew and Sylvia in the distance.

own villages) and  become introvert in a strange kind of way.   Anyway I enjoyed chatting to Andrew and Sylvia  and hope they had a pleasant run home to Earlsferry.   I went to the harbour on the way home... it was warm in the sunshine on the lee side of the granary:  the bike is now in The Hutte where it will remain until tomorrow.    

20.30    Temperature apart this has been a bonnie day;  though we did catch the edge of a shower that gave us a few (very few ‘cos it was only the extreme edge of the shower)  about 16.00.   It was hot sitting in The Hutte.  It’s going to be cold tomorrow in fact it’s going to be cold until next weekend according to the latest weather forecast.    I might have a lie in tomorrow morning and go for the paper at 11.00 when the sun is higher and the air warmer.   In the meantime I am seriously thinking of that ironing.... no I’ll leave it until tomorrow, and have a mug of chocolate instead.

Happy looking auld guy?

When Sylvia, Matthew and I were talking this morning we talked about how the air was cleaner because of the huge drop in pollutants in the atmosphere.   Since then I got round to thinking of the first morning I woke up out in New Zealand (six years ago).    ‘M’ and I went out to the garden to have coffee and what was the first thing I noticed... and commented on?..... how crystal clear the sky was;  it was so obviously clean.    I was looking at our sky this afternoon and I do believe that it is beginning to have that crystal clear blue look too.   Do we have to go back to our ‘normal’ polluting ways?