Breakfast at Taste, lectures with Camilla. I could get used to this!
There's some road resurfacing at Greyfriar's, and they found gravesite(s) there! I stared at some brown lumps and a group of people with paintbrushes squatting around them. Cool.
The big event of the day was meeting up with an old college friend for dinner. I had the idea that I might paint a picture of the boats in the harbor as a house gift, but what with being sick and taking a too-long nap, the hasty sketch I came up with was fit only for fire starter. At least I now understand what a lobster boat looks like. And a swan. To my regret, the puffins that bob around on the other side of the pier are too shy to pose.
While waiting for Camilla, I peeked in at choir practice. It was lovely hearing the small student orchestra and choir work on something Renaissance. I kept getting carried away by the intricate harmonies, when the conductor would stop them in mid-phrase and say, "All right, let's move to Bar 42!" He'd play a chord on the piano and they'd start somewhere else. Dizzying.
Keith is an astronomer and lives just around the corner from choir practice. He and his wife Anne have a cosy stone house with an Aga stove, a sick cat, and (despite the cat) a sense of peace. We sat at their kitchen table, eating burritos and reminiscing about our not-very-wild college days. There was a sense that, if there had been more time, we could have renewed and deepened a worthy friendship.