Road to the clouds

What a great afternoon - and a great choice, to go south rather than into the hills, which as the afternoon progressed became overcast with these dark clouds. This is the road we'd been walking, all the way to its end where it is growing dark, and on to the left as far as Knockdow house. The darkness grew behind us, rather in the manner of some alien invasion of the Star Ship Enterprise in a classic Star Trek episode, while we managed to stay just ahead, in the sunlight. It was peaceful and lovely and we were surrounded by the gold of the trees as we considered how fortunate we are, in this time of realisation of the damage we've done to our climate, to live in an area with so much grass, trees, unspoiled land and clean air. When we learn that hectares of land in Edinburgh are annually being concreted over because of people's house extensions, it seems utterly vital that we protect our countryside.

My extra photo is what I could see when I turned round - the view over Bute towards the hills of Arran, with their own dramatic cap of cumulous. Rothesay, the town on Bute, seems caught in its own spotlight.

And then it was home to cook for half of my family who decided to spend their half-term holiday with us. It's at moments like this that we wish we'd reorganised our kitchen to accommodate a dishwasher after all ...