Plus and minus

No daughter to share the second coffee with this morning because she's off to Lossie. I miss having an early morning chat with her. Am I getting dependent here? That's bad if so. She's good company and a good listener which is something that can't be said about many people.
I woke up and got up in one swift shocked movement, hearing the garbage men in the street. If I miss the fortnghtly collection the bin begins to stink. I still can't believe they have cut it down to once a fortnight. The alternative week it is the turn of the brown bin for garden refuse; mine goes out about four times a year. I don't have a compost pile. Lots of people don't. Maybe they should but they don't. Whatever the rights and wrong the result on this morning was I had to run downstairs in my nightdress to shove out the bin. Can't leave it out all night or it makes ammunition for the drunks and the cheeky youth that haunt these streets till the sun comes back up.
The result of this precipitous exit from a deep sleep was shaky limbs and a feeling of dislocation I haven't yet shaken off.

There are good things and bad things to be anticipated in this day. They are the same things, just different sides of the coin. I am to have a hair cut. That's a Good thing. I need it cut. But having my hair cut makes me nervous, especially as this is a new-to-me hair dresser. So many have their own idea of what the head in the mirror should look like. They mostly fail to see the body beneath. Which means there are too many heavy women (I number myself sadly amongst them now) walking around with neat small heads. Not good. Also the women with heavy faces with really short cuts that make them look like bull dikes. Maybe they are but I doubt it; grannies like me probably. No, I am nervous in the hairdressers. My palms sweat. especially when they get to my fringe which makes all hairdressers edgey. They know it's not right. It should be shorter or I shouldn't have one at all at my age. I have to tell them that before I could give up my fringe I would need a year's counselling and that would be expensive. I tell them the story of the deliveries of my babies; when the nurse wiped my brow and I panicked because she was sweeping back my fringe. I feel I have had a good cut when I come away from the hairdresser looking almost the same as when I went in, just neater.
Tom is coming in to look after the shop whilst I go through this ordeal. I hope he will also take some of this pile of Sci-fi off my hands. He likes to ebay small thin paperbacks that he can slip into jiffy bag. So far, with some green band Penguin crime he has made a very small profit which certainly won't excite the tax man but which pleases Tom because he is 'getting going again.' He is never well after a dose of Lyme's Disease years ago and an on-going lung condition that his mother also had and which in her case turned into cancer. She died two years ago and it seemed to take Tom a while to get his gentle sense of humour back to full capacity. He even stopped going for his 'medicine,' a pint of real ale at the Beastie which he would order, sup a little, then leave to settle whilst he wandered around the town checking the charity shops and pasing the time of day here. I'm glad to see him back to his old habits. He's good with the locals, talks with their accent unlike me with my incomer voice.
The other plus and minus is having these 4 boxes sitting here to deal with in a very restricted space. I shall re-read drif's comment on the size of bookshops to cheer me up.