Gosh, it's ...

Windy. We didn't realise when we set out quite how windy our walk was going to be. Our house faces east, with hills to the west behind the town, and we're kind of sheltered from some winds. This was one of them. It made walking a much harder business than it had any right to be.

It was probably my fault. I looked out of the window and saw sun to the south. This is often so, as we live only a few miles north of where the Highland Boundary Fault passes on its way south-west, and we have rather wetter weather than the different, more gentle terrain to its south. It's just that I didn't think about wind.

It was only as we bashed our way into it that I remembered the black blobs on last night's BBC Weather forecast. For the uninitiated, wind speeds in black blobs (as opposed to white ones) indicate gust speeds, and they only appear when said gusts will be noticeable. They were there last night. 

So here I am, facing into the teeth of a sub-gale to take a Blip of white wave-tops on a deep turquoise sea under dark clouds. In the distance lies Bute. The sun won't last, and it's very chilly in the wind. Further point for those interested in language development: I have noticed the expression "black winds" creeping into the vocabulary of some of my acquaintance ...