hey! i've discovered that people use these blog things to publish a diary of stuff that actually happens to them every day! weird or what? well, i'm up for some of that, so here's my day. i woke up feeling a bit rough. nothing unusual in that except that before i had time to assess the degree of roughness i had to go into town to see my dentist, who is welsh. he had grown a beard the last time i saw him, which came as a shock because he's been poking around in my mouth for 20 years without a beard. anyway, today he had lost the beard, but kept the bushy grey moustache, which was, i suppose, a reasonable compromise. it would have been worse if he'd shaved the moustache and kept the beard, which is a sure sign of madness. nobody wants a mad person working on their teeth. anyway, he only buffed up my teeth and extracted the cash today.

most people would probably consider a visit to the dentist to be quite enough excitement for one day, but i'm a bit of a party animal so i decided to go and buy some razor blades and a pair of trousers. shock horror! mr wilkinson-sword has stopped making my brand of razor blades and it looks as if i might soon be forced down the same path as my dentist. i've never had a beard, but perhaps i will look more distinguished. there again i might look like a hobo. only time will tell. anyway, undeterred i made my way to the trouser shop where i bought a pair of dark blue trousers which are in a dark blue carrier bag beside me as i write, but if you open the bag you can't see the trousers because they're the same colour as the bag.

wait, i've got mixed up. en route to the shopping i went into a couple of art galleries. in the first one there were oil paintings of a naked girl, sometimes with downy white wings on her back. in the biggest painting she was standing with her back to the viewer (in this case, me) on top of what looked like a gigantic caramel mousse against a blue sky with fluffy white clouds and sporting 2 violins for wings. it was called 'on top of the world'. no mention of the mousse. even though it cost a mere £2,500, i decided not to buy it. however, she did have a very pert bottom, so i went back and looked at it again on the way out. in the next gallery i saw an exhibtion by gerald laing, who i've met a couple of times and who lives in a castle type place north of inverness. he was showing sculptures, prints and some recent paintings about the iraq war. there's a gushing review of the exhibition here.

where was i? oh yes, after i bought the trousers i ate a 'new york deli' sandwich on a bench in the gardens beneath the castle, admiring the almost hallucinogenic haze of the autumn trees shimmering in the watery sunlight. it was ok but i threw away the bits of gherkin. then i came home and knitted a pair of socks.