Eggy goodness.

Once upon a time, long ago, my father swore to me that one day I'd like eggs. He tied his prediction directly to the likelihood that at some point in early adulthood, I wouldn't have much money and would turn to eggs as a cheap but nutritious foodstuff. (He also taught me some darned good egg-decorating techniques, by the way, and I may talk about those a bit tomorrow.) Somehow, over the years, I've discovered that I do like eggs--as long as they're cooked with a plethora of other ingredients. Quiche is one of my ideas of an excellent meal. Ditto for omelettes. (Eggs scrambled, hard-boiled, soft-boiled, poached, fried, over-easy, deviled--all of these things are still largely repellent to me.)

And so it is that today, I aimed for a window of good weather (and missed, it must be said) and dashed down to the grocery for six eggs (at £1.28, and that wasn't even for the organic ones) and some omelette ingredients: smoked salmon, French chevre, a cut-rate avocado. And I mostly succeeded in teaching myself to make an omelette, a process that felt like one extra refuge from weather that could go from this


to this


in the space of nine minutes before turning right back around again, allowing the sun only brief bits of time in which to do fleetingly lovely things to the water lingering on vines and tree limbs.


These people, whom I spied from Trinity Bridge on my way home from the grocery (right after I passed a bride hurrying through the sleet and into the college for her wedding) were the saddest punters I've ever seen. When I got home and took a closer look at the three guys visible in this shot, I decided that they might be in the running for Saddest Punters Ever.