Chasing the sunset...

You can tell Christmas is coming because I spent most of the morning giving our lounge a thorough clean (and I've not quite finished yet) including polishing the brass and pewter! I'm just not a natural housekeeper and always find cleaning quite an effort but I have to admit the room looks a lot better, although still with room for improvement.

After a grey and chilly start the sun peeped out around lunchtime, so Pete and I took Rosie up to Southey Wood, as our walking routes in the valley are still limited. We had a fairly pleasant ramble, though there was nothing particularly photogenic. Rosie was played with by a particularly rumbunctious young male bull-terrier, but held her own when he got too rough. I'm glad he was basically good natured because his jaws were immensely strong and powerful.

Back home to a bit more tidying and then preparation of a peppery goulash for tea. It seemed the right sort of weather for a warming stew, and was designed to welcome Chris, Lizz and Alex back from Sheffield. As I was chopping the onions and garlic I was keeping half an eye on the setting sun, but the sky didn't seem to be very spectacular. All of a sudden clouds bubbled up and assumed a stunning salmon pink colour, so I left Pete to put the goulash in the oven and dashed down to the Rowing Lake.

I hadn't bargained for a queue of traffic at one of the junctions, and watched the brief but spectacular colours in the western sky fade as I waited to turn left... Fortunately there was still a gentle warm glow when I finally made it to the edge of the flooded Rowing Lake. The water has dropped a lot more today, and it won't be very long before some of the paths reappear - as long as we don't get any more heavy rain!