Swollen Sunrise

We had this nice sunrise a couple of mornings ago. Yes! Sun! For a brief moment and only on the horizon, but still, it counts. (Otherwise the heavenly orbs have mostly been hidden by clouds lately.)

Finally, FINALLY, Dave and I are on break. I have no plans for the next few days but to sit around and read. I feel as wrung-out as a wet washcloth. I do have some holiday goals, though -- a heavy-duty cleaning of the bathroom and, if I get really ambitious, possibly repainting.

I also thought I might clear some more dead stuff from the garden, but Dave is arguing that we should leave it to decay and restore the soil (and protect the critters and roots in the ground from freezes). I'm cool with that, so I guess that's the plan. We'll deal with it all in the spring.

We were supposed to go last night to a choral concert in a church with some of Dave's co-workers, but with Covid numbers ramping up they decided not to go and we followed suit. Dave called and surrendered our tickets in case others were trying to get in, but I don't know what the demand is like at the moment. We have another Christmas concert next week at Royal Albert Hall; fortunately there we'll be in a box seat, with some space around us, so hopefully that will go forward as planned.

We've been having some mysterious trouble with Olga in the last few days. Can you see how the left side of her snout (in the photo) is slightly swollen? It's barely noticeable but it's definitely out of balance. I looked at her teeth and gums and couldn't see anything unusual, and she doesn't seem to be in any pain and is eating normally -- even chewy treats! But in an abundance of caution I took her to the vet last night. (THAT turned out to be an odyssey, because our usual vet, around the corner from our flat, had no available appointments until next week -- so I had to walk Olga over to the Hampstead branch of their office, and as Olga is a leisurely walker these days it took 45 minutes to get there.)

The vet said he couldn't see anything unusual either, so his theory is that it's just temporary and we should go back if it isn't gone by the middle of next week. The waiting game!

I had some interesting comment spam this morning -- it's not just Ratana anymore. Now it's someone posting LOOOOOOONG messages wanting to sell antiquated sleeping pills like Nembutal. (Isn't that what Marilyn Monroe overdosed on?) Anyway, in deleting them, I discovered a handful of comments from real commenters tucked into my Blogger spam folder, going back several months. I never check that spam folder, but I guess I should! Sorry if I ignored your comments until now!