Day Forty-one

DAY FORTY-ONE

Another cold wet day, colder than ever in fact - a high of 11 degrees barely qualifies as high! I take advantage of a mid-morning break in the weather to go for a run, heading off towards the marina which is the shortest of my three routes and should let me get back before it rains. I haven't been down that way since a couple of hostile events put me off, but right at the outset a man walking a dog calls, 'Good morning,' adding, 'We'll get through this.' I run backwards for a few steps to let him finish his remarks – I might be the only live face he sees today and he mine – and he says, 'We'll find something else to complain about, they're starting on the roads soon.' I laugh and wave and carry on down the path. If complaining about the roads is all we have to worry about, we're going to be fine.

It's cool and fresh with hardly anyone about as I jog past NIWA and the fish factory to the rock wall at the end of the road, where a few people are contemplating the glassy sea and the gathering dark clouds. I get back just before the rain starts again.

Showered and cosy, I log in to a Psych Society Zoom meeting. It's great to see some old friends and colleagues and some newer ones. Most are working by phone or video call and struggling to keep up with demand. Some are lively and political with their contributions and I have some things to say even though I'm not working. Surely there will be a way forward which includes the very useful work of psychologists?

The afternoon passes as I knit and listen to the radio, even doze a little, with Po asleep on the coach and the heat pump going steadily. Baking is the best thing to do on a cold day and I need bread so around four o'clock I set a batch to rise and go downstairs to do my piano practice. That reminds me that I haven't collected my booklet about composition which my teacher said she would leave in her porch. The sky has cleared a little so I take an umbrella and walk round. I'm tempted to put the oven on to pre-heat while I'm away but my daughter's voice, 'Keep looking while you're cooking,' comes to mind and I refrain. It's just as well because, even though my piano teacher's home is only five minutes walk away, she has found an error in the booklet and reprints it for me, so it takes a bit longer than I intended.

I walk home via the reserve where I can look out to the mountains. There's a pink arch in the sky as the clouds are beginning to lift in the west and the mountains are revealed. After such cold rain I expected snow but there's barely a sprinkle on the tops.

Back home I heat up the oven and put in bread, a batch of scones (sultana since there's not much cheese) and a potato and silver beet bake for dinner. I'm properly warm at last!