Monday 6 November 2023
We are back in Scotland in our cold house. However, we are significantly better prepared after our stay in London. I went to Uniqlo on Regent Street on Saturday and bought fleece-lined – what do you call them? Leisure trousers? Sweatpants? Jogging bottoms? Anyway, them. And a furry-fleece, high-necked, zip-up jacket and thermal underlayers. The trousers are the most amazing things ever. I totally missed a trick with fleecy trousers last winter. I just need to not let myself wear them outside the home environment, there is nothing flattering or attractive about them and I really don’t need other people to see me wearing them.
On Saturday morning from about 09:45, I met Louise, who I’ve known since we started school, at Victoria station. We had almost four hours of walk-chat-eat-coffee time. I am so glad we were able to meet, I had wanted to see her and also go into central London. We walked from Victoria to Edgware Road via a coffee shop in Mayfair and across Hyde Park and Green Park. We’d decided to go for an early lunch at a Lebanese restaurant, Bursa, on Edgware Road. The place we liked the look of had a fabulous breakfast for two full of hot and cold dishes. It was perfect. The food was delicious and because that breakfast is clearly a ‘thing’, it came soon after we ordered it so we didn’t have to rush for Louise’s train.
After Louise went off for her train, I spent a good thirty seconds deciding whether to catch a train back to Lewisham or walk to Regent Street for Uniqlo and Piccadilly for Lilywhites. Unsurprisingly, the shopping won. And that’s how I discovered the fleecy clothes. From Lilywhites, I bought a waterproof fluorescent workwear jacket. It’s not a thing of great beauty but now that I’m walking more on the roads and tracks out here, I realised fluorescent might be good, ditto waterproof rather than merely water resistant or repellent. So, along with my thermal trousers and jackets, I have a style-less, ludicrously sensible jacket. Other than standing out for being fluorescent, I do at least feel that I blend in and don’t stand out for being ‘up from London’. Well, I do as soon as I open my mouth, but hey ho.
The drive from London to Scottish Borders yesterday was delightfully uneventful and the driving time was about six-and-a-quarter hours. On top of that, we stopped at a farmshop on the A66, to collect Chris’s car from Lockerbie station and for a second breakfast/early lunch and a walk at a service station. We left London at 07:15 and were back here around 14:15. It was even sunny so I had a quick patrol around the garden. Good to be back, though unsurprisingly we will both need a few days to acclimatise to thermals and layers from t-shirts and thin trousers.
