annanotbob2's Diaryland Diary

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Running, running, running

It’s suddenly gone proper cold, like 6C when I went out this morning. I’d been thinking we were just having the odd cold days and the warm would be back soon but it’s almost October so I guess we’ve had that for now. It was a pretty shit summer here, if you ask me. When it was hot it was also fucking windy then when the wind dropped the clouds arrived and stayed. Meh. Still, back to good, proper cold water swimming. I’m looking forward to that.
Today was choir – we’re getting a bit good on some of the songs – Breath by Sweet Honey in the Rock and Running by Beyonce especially. I’ve had that running, running, running, running chorus stuck in my head all day. We were asked to choose a couple of songs we’d like to sing – at which point my mind went completely blank of everything except singer/songwriters from the 1970s so I suggested For A Dancer by Jackson Browne and Both Sides Now by Joni Mitchell. We’re going to be voting on them.
This afternoon I started making rosehip syrup – well I picked a kilo of hips from the wildlife hedge at the end of our garden, which I found very pleasing, apart from ripping my hands to shreds on the thorns. This hedge was my idea – we bought a pack of 20 bare-rooted hedging plants for £15 about eight years ago, poked them in the soil and now there’s a massive hedge, full of insects, tiny birds shouting their heads off and plenty of hips for making delicious syrup. I got as far as trimming them then had to have a sit down and watch Strictly.
And here’s a bit from the blog – I don’t know if the photos will come out [they didn't - imagine the best ever blurry pics, that's what they were like]

“Today I went to art at the hospital and took pictures through the steamed up windows on the bus:

Normally I'd walk all the three miles home, but today it started raining hard when I was well on my way - too far off a bus route to do anything other than plod on, get drenched, and get on a bus when I came back to the main road. On the bus, a bloke moved up to make room for me on his seat, but I went past him to grab the window seat behind as it was steamy, the light had changed and I wanted to take more pics:

Well, bloody hell, off he started in a loud Glaswegian voice, about what a fine thing it is that no one wants to sit next to a wee gay Scotsman, do we all think we're better than him, blah blah blah, on and on - yes, he was pissed, but I recognised him as someone I'd seen quite often wrapped in a manky thin sleeping bag in a shop doorway, so after he'd moaned on a bit, I put my head forward between the seats and told him about sitting by the window to take pictures, showing him the one I'd just taken (above). Well, he bloody loved that, got right into it:

and then we fell straight into an intense, honest conversation - he'd left his last boyfriend after seven years because he'd been diagnosed with MS and put on steroids which made him violent - I know, weird coincidence, made me jump a bit - but that was a nice little interlude, sitting on a crowded, steamy bus, dripping wet through to my skin, taking photos and bonding with a stranger for ten minutes.”

12:05 a.m. - 29.09.24

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