An Unordinary Day

There are days when the accumulation of important, but non urgent tasks, overflows the vessel, and action has to be taken.

Yesterday started later than intended, due to the cold weather, and the necessity to check the heating in empty properties,

so after a busy day in town, by the time I reached the ferry, it was quite dark.

There was something rather magical about driving onto the floating road, then being majestically carried across the moon-lit stretch of slumbering, black, water.

No sooner was I home, purchases stowed and food in fridge than there was a tap on the door. I had forgotten that it was local's night in the Lugger Inn.

It was good to see my old mate John, who I hadn't seen since his birthday bash just before Christmas, when Toni was unable to join us, having just had part of a lung removed.

Having pre-ordered our meals some days before, we sat down with our drinks and caught up with the news. The rule was, no politics, or religion. But Health, that's another matter.

For two weeks, John had been laid up with something like Covid, and still looked a bit the worse for wear. He's a tough nut though, a long-term survivor of stage four throat cancer.

Toni was in fine fettle, and it was good to see him, as he had missed John's birthday do because he was still recovering from his op.

I don't really suffer from anything more than the inability to smell anything, which is sometimes inconvenient, like when something melts on the hob and fills the house with petrochemically derived nano-particles, or I follow a rogue recipe that leaves food in the microwave long enough to combust.

however, there was one thing that we both shared, and that was the discovery that glucosamine + chondroitin really does strengthen nails.

For a few years, I had been plagued with progressively weaker nails, and had become expert at repairing them using superglue and tissue paper, (a trick I learnt from a professional classical guitarist).

My mother was plagued by arthritis, and as a child she would take me for walks, and when she found stinging nettles, she would brush her hands in them which must've stung like crazy, but she did it to alleviate the pain of her aching joints.

Remembering this, and on the advice of my daughter, I started taking glucosamine as a precaution, with unexpectedly beneficial results.

After a satisfying meal, and convivial conversation, we made our way home, but not before collecting the oak staves from a broken beer barrel, which Toni the skipper will use to carve into fish and sell them to visitors.

I shall ask him to make one for me, as it will become a little memory, and they really are a work of art.