Changeable

What a strange day. Actually, we had a lovely day, finding ourselves in bright sunshine almost every moment despite great towering cumulus, some really quite close, with clearly visible showers joining them, as it were, to the earth. This is one of those moments of drama: we'd abandoned the car by the side of the road and were setting off to walk straight under that purple cloud in the photo. I even had an umbrella in a rucksack - it felt far too warm and sunny to wear a waterproof. Anyway, it came to nothing.

The photo shows a glimpse of Toward Castle, the old one as distinct from the more recent one, formerly home to the Glasgow Schools' First Orchestra for its summer course and now taken on by a couple whose first act was to erect tall fencing all round the grounds. God knows what they're doing inside ... But this is the original keep, and in front of it the banks of invasive-but-attractive-when-flowering rhododendrons. There is a herd of black cattle in the field; that wee one scrambled to its feet when I took the photo.

My extra photo was taken out of my window this morning when I got up. The sun on the water, with the dark shapes of the various ships, never fails to appeal.