Sunday 27 August 2023
I’m sitting on my Mastermind chair listening to music in the slightly pretentiously-named Indian room. It was officially completed a week ago and has been used significantly more since then. There is now a speaker in one of the niches and more of the cold, hard porcelain flooring is covered by rugs. The pink (Petticoat Pink, B&Q’s Valspar Premium matt) is a more vibrant pink than I envisaged but it seems to react well to light, making it almost glow a warming pink light. I love how much of a difference more colour has made to areas of the house. My next painting job is probably the stairwell (dark blue with a yellow border) or a stripe (yes, that could go horribly wrong) across the kitchen ceiling (two shades of yellow).
We decided to go somewhere new yesterday and I needed to return something to a chain store so we searched for places with the shop and decided to visit Gretna, Gretna Green and Caledonia Park Designer Outlet. The likelihood of ever going to the outlet shopping centre again is pretty much zero. The likelihood of eating out at the outlet centre again is zero. It is also unlikely we’ll ever go to Gretna or Gretna Green again. It had the feel of a small town that had once been busy and lively and full of chapels and weddings (well, I say “full”; it was clearly never Las Vegas) but has now been kind of forgotten about and criss-crossed with railway lines and main roads. The weddings I did see (Chris couldn’t quite face visiting the chapel) seemed happy and fun events but the wedding area is basically a tourist destination with a few souvenir shops and a steady stream of weddings and wedding extras, from limos to bagpipers. I felt really gloomy after visiting the place, it’s somewhere I’d always heard of but which was a massive disappointment. The outdoor (the best part, its being outdoors) shopping centre was full of small shops and was basically a fairly limited chain shopping experience and the food options were a few chains or a cafeteria, which we went to, which was overpriced and underwhelming. I know, not surprising, but I was clearly in the mood to absorb more disappointment.
However, cheered up by the evening as we went out with friends and had a really good dinner out. We got home in darkness, which I think is the first time we’ve ever arrived back here in full darkness. We went out with our two nearby friends to a really good restaurant about half an hour’s drive from us. It will probably never not feel like a novelty to go out to a restaurant for dinner around here as that’s only the second time we’ve done that in nine months. As with our first visit to The Gordon Arms, the food was excellent. It was also genuinely enjoyable going out with Sue and Steve and getting to know them better. As an unexpected bonus, Steve discovered that Chris and I like to eat trout. When we dropped them home after dinner, Steve presented us with two frozen trout that he’d caught in a local loch, so that’s dinner sorted for tonight.
I think I am still very much in the mindset of my social life being a variation on what it was when I was living in London, in the sense that I catch up with friends in London and Kent when I’m back and we’ve had a lot of visitors since we moved up here. It is, however, really good to spend time with friends around here, which is something we have made very minimal effort to do.
Today, I am intending to do very little beyond reading, pottering around, a walk and I think that completing the final foundation stone for the cabin would be a good move. I will also be eating a lot of possibly my new favourite cheesecake, coffee, vanilla and blackcurrant.