A new addition

I'm writing this blip after midnight, and there's a loaf in the oven. My sourdough timetable went all to pot this week, so that we ended up eating discard pancakes for lunch with the amazing soup I made yesterday, while the dough sat rising sluggishly in a corner. I noted it after dinner, thought it would benefit from another hour or so - and then forgot all about it until I was about to come upstairs. This way ruin lies ...

My photo, however, is of the good thing that happened today, in that Mr PB managed to angle himself on the step ladder this morning in such a way that he was able to hang my latest acquisition where I wanted it: the uppermost painting in this selection is a lovely seascape by my friend Paddy who let me use it for the cover to my poetry anthology. The original was sold by the time I got to the Open Studios event in Dunoon, but I bought the print she had on display, and I'm delighted with it. The room in which it hangs is our dining-cum-living-room, and the place we spend most of the time during the day. It's full of pictures, because the walls are rather lumpy and completely devoid of plaster cornices or any of the other decorative features found in the sitting room and the master bedroom, and positively invite adornment. There isn't a TV in the room, but there is a fine music system, two armchairs, the dining room table where we eat, and the candles we light at dinner. It's a crazy room. Long before my time it used to be a kitchen with a range and a big sink, but now all my cooking is done in the kitchen added to the rear of the house more than 100 years ago.

My extra photo is of the start of our walk this afternoon, as the trees in Glen Massan blaze with autumn. We're so fortunate in having all these relatively straightforward walks in the area, where we meet hardly a soul, and where we can walk even when we don't get started till late in the afternoon. Some day I'll catch my tail; it certainly wasn't today!