Almost ...

There's something strangely transitory about a day spent preparing for a trip, something lonely as everyone else, you think, is getting on with their ordinary day and you're almost not here, wherever "here" is. I was first aware of this when I was a child, and it's not just that everything seems big to a small child: our preparations for our summer holidays were as prolonged as I now realise our holidays to be. For an eight week holiday in a cottage on Arran, our family took a hamper and a trunk; I remember the trunk was filled mainly with bed linen (we'd to take our own) and towels, all neatly folded and smooth in the old black trunk (until we got a new, blue one); the hamper contained everything else - clothes, shoes, books, waterproofs, sweeties (at least while rationing was still in place - we saved sweets, mostly boilings and barley sugar,  from our rations and put them in a big tin), rucksacks, spades, buckets - all in that big hamper. The trunk and hamper sat open in the hall for what seemed for ever in the last weeks of school, until the carrier came to take them to Arran and we were left with only our school uniforms to play in until we were reunited with our belongings. 

Our packing now, obviously, is a very small operation, but we're making quite a meal of it, mainly, I have to confess, on the self-catering front. But I did feel cut off from my normal life, so that when I saw my bestie obliviously walking past my house with bags of messages I hung out of the window - that same window I take the suicidal photos from - and yoo-hooed in an unabashed manner. Crazy, huh?

We did have a lovely walk later, one which began under grey clouds that from their appearance could have brought rain but ended on a beautiful sunny early evening. That's when I took this photo of the River Massan looking brown with the sudden brightness of a rhododendron bush overhanging the water. I reckon you've had enough of misty seascapes for a while.

Isn't it odd to be in the position of envying the USA their sensible leader while we have a dishevelled clown who can't frame a straight answer to a question? 

Just asking ...