Stir crazy

Today's weather epitomised all that is worst in the weather of a West coast November. It was stupidly mild - 13ºC at 4pm - and windy, so that the relatively fine rain was driven against the windows and anything else mad enough to be outside. The cloud and hill fog lay low over the town all day. Why would anyone want to go out?

At first I felt quite pleased to be spending the morning indoors. We had a zoom meeting about church arrangements for Advent, followed by a FaceTime chat with my daughter-in-law and coffee. I then put in a finicky couple of hours creating the church calendar - every time I take photos of our picturesque church and grounds I'm aware of fitting in landscape views that could be calendar material. I had lunch, read the Observer (this tends to take all week; the political stuff was pretty interesting this time). But then I began to feel restless; eyes gritty and dry; lunch (sourdough and avocado, with a tiny bit of cheese) sitting in a lump.

And this is why I was in a position to take this, and several other, dramatic, wet photos. This is the River Eachaig, which flows out of Loch Eck past Benmore Gardens on its way to the Holy Loch. Its normal course lies beyond that tree whose black trunk is creating the foaming bow wave beside the still-copper leaves of the adjoining sapling. You can see the movement on the surface of the grey water as it rushes along, though you can't hear the powerful gurgling sound of its passing. It was marvellous, and quite threatening.

We walked along to the waterworks, through the trees, past the fields, all the time seeing the last light fade as the wet road gleamed faintly in the glimmer of the darkening sky. It was only about 6 kilometres in toto, but by the time we were on our way back J announced that he couldn't see at all and produced his head torch. I have better night vision, but the light destroys it, so I pounded on ahead and waited when I got back to the lighted courtyard outside the Benmore buildings. We were completely soaked.

And it was that soaking, and the improved mood brought on by having been out, that made bearable the news of the increased imposition of Level 4 controls on more of Scotland. We're unchanged, still at Level 2, and I know that today wouldn't really have been very different in a normal November; the frayed tempers on social media tell the story of how other people feel about it. I must say, I'm increasingly grateful for the level of interaction on Blip - by far the most civilised online community I've found. 

I think it's going to rain even more tomorrow. Will my trainers have dried?