Lighten our darkness ...

It's been only two days since the clocks returned to GMT and already it feels as if it's winter and we've been here for ages - at least, that's what today felt like. Is this why I'm reduced to quoting from the office of Evening Prayer? It was actually dry when I woke, though apparently I'd missed a wonderful sunrise by not doing this quite early enough, but by coffee-time the rain was on and that was it. Somehow time passes, however - slips away when I'm not looking, so that it's suddenly lunch time and I've not noticed. What did I accomplish? I did a washing (and dealt with the damp towels I'd abandoned in the washing machine last night), I had a phone chat with my sister, whom I've not actually seen for 10 months despite her being only down the Firth a bit, I FaceTimed my pal over coffee. Then I tore myself away from the cosy living room and up to the study, where I wrote the Intercessions for Sunday and began making notes for a possible memoir about my post-war childhood (I've been nagged by my #2 son and Mr PB's best man to do this thing). 

I always come away freezing from sitting at the desk, so it was even harder to tear myself away from the fire in the afternoon and go out for the walk that will, I hope, ensure sanity in the months to come. We chose to walk along the far side of Loch Eck even though it's guaranteed to be wetter than anywhere else on a day like this, because I knew the trees would cheer everything - and me - up more than the sight of the grey sea. And they did - we walked through a wonderful tunnel of gold, with the noise of several small burns fairly purling down the hillside and a continual drifting down of leaves like golden snowflakes in the breeze. And yes - there were squirrels: two of them, one very light red, the other a more dun colour with reddish tips, scampering around the big tree at the farm, vying for possession of the feeder. But I'm blipping a photo that turned out to be more fun than I realised - I was in such a hurry to get my phone out of the rain again that I didn't notice till afterwards that I'm in the photo too!

A last positive thought about the pandemic: I received the October newsletter sent out to the 300,000 people who have signed up to the  NHS Covid-19 Vaccine Research Registry, helping support the search for a safe and effective vaccine against Covid-19. It'll make for interesting blipping if I'm called to take part ...