Coffee Shop

Slightly hungover, I don't leave the house till 3:00pm. It is raining, a dreamy autumnal gloom, though not heavy enough to be irritating. There is something almost protective and comforting about the light drizzle.
I go to George Street first to pick up Fortean Times annual 'mag-book' (as they call it) of real-life paranormal tales called 'It Happened To Me'. On volume 6 now. Another autumnal ritual - I've been getting them since they first came out, back in the autumn of 2008 when I was still living in the hallowed walls of 35 Wilbury Crescent. Afterwards I went to Tescos. As I stepped in, a voice came over the tannoy, warning us that we all had ten minutes to spare before the store closed. A great intensity over the shoppers, and I rushed around; tins of peas, baked potatoes, slices of Leerdammer light cheese...
I considered going home when I got out but instead walked nearly into town and went into the Starbucks down Western Road. It was crowded with foreign students; Polish women talking quickly, the halting tones of an Italian woman out on a first date. A woman with short hair, looking Eastern European in a pleasing Soviet-Block era way, sat opposite me and played with her phone. She looked nostalgic for snow and ice and monochrome days.
After flicking through 'It Happened To Me volume 6' I took out my sketchbook and spent a relatively productive hour continuing the present drawing, called 'Under Surveillance') of a man in the pose of Gaughin's female figure in 'Nevermore', while  behind him, a dark woodland broods (based on Cluny Woods in Forres).
The last of my coffee was drunk cold.
I walked home slowly through the rainy early twilight. If it hadn't been raining I might have walked for longer.