Two unusual experiences.

Unusual experience 1 - buying tights.

At work, I wore skirts - and hence tights - all the time, and I had lots, which have lasted me until now, because since I retired, I have probably worn trousers on 355  days out of 365. Possibly more, given that we haven't had a decent summer in all those years.

But for the last few days the sun has been shining in the Cheese Acres neighbourhood (we won't mention today's thunderstorm), so I fished some suitable skirts out of the back of the wardrobe and looked under  the socks on the sock drawer. 

And found no wearable summer tights. Plenty of thick black ones, but they didn't seem quite right. So I headed for M&S, who do not make it easy for the out of practice to buy tights.

Plenty of very fine denier, shiny ones (! - I'm sure they didn't have those eight years ago) but not many sensible run resist.

Lots of black ones, but not many lighter ones. Possibly others had had the same idea and got there before me. 

Sizing advice in tiny print, so those who have lost weight <g> since they last bought tights had to get their specs out to work out what size they were. 

Larger sizes at the bottom of the rack so elderly knees were tested as I searched among the battalions of unsuitable packets for the few reasonable ones. 

I did get some in the end, but I hope they will last another eight years, by which time I will be a very aged granny and either wearing lisle ones like my granny (anyone know where to get them?) or I will feel the cold so much I shall never wear a skirt at all.

Experience 2 - being the audience at an exam.

I have taken quite a lot of exams in my time - I tried to tot up how many but fell at the first hurdle of remembering how many papers there were for O-level English, or A-level maths, or undergraduate psychology. I have invigilated a fair number too, which is almost as bad as taking them, and infinitely more boring. But I have never before been invited to be in the audience for one. 

The Senorita kindly invited us to her last exam - being very clever she has done a joint music and acoustic engineering degree, and the final exam was a recital. She played, beautifully, Fauré's Sonata No.1 for violin and piano (not on her own, you understand) and Ysaye's Sonata for violin. No, I hadn't heard of him either, but he was a violin teacher and clearly enjoyed taxing his students with pieces which explore the full range of what you can do with a violin, short of hitting your teacher over the head with it.

It was the most enjoyable exam I've ever been to, although I suspect the Senorita didn't enjoy it quite as much as we did. Now we have our fingers crossed for her results, and then in the autumn she starts her D.Eng. (I told you she is a clever lady.)

Life has returned to our normal, not to say boring, routine since then - and to be truthful I'm not sorry, I can only take so much excitement in a short time.