Stir up Sunday

I feel a great deal has happened today, even though the only outward and visible sign is the still-warm cake sitting in the kitchen - unless you count the winter duvet on my bed! This morning we could really feel that winter was coming - there was ice on the windscreen - although the house hadn't cooled down too badly overnight and I was still quite cosy in bed despite still being under the 4.5 tog summer duvet. 

Church was reasonably warm too - no rain to make it damp and no wind to snake in round corners - and a good-sized congregation turned up for this, the last Sunday of the liturgical year, the feast of Christ the King. Prayer book aficionados will also know it as Stir Up Sunday,* traditionally the day for making your Christmas pudding/cake/whatever you need to stir in your festive preparations. I have a feeling this is not the first time I've said this on here, but that's the way with recurring festivals ... 

I took in the twenty calendars I'd made with my photos of the church through the year; the whole lot were sold out by the time we left, which was rather satisfying. A relatively quick turnaround of coffee/out for the Observer/lunch/hang out the duvet cover (it didn't dry much, but all the same ...) and we were off out again to catch at least some sunshine. 

Loch Striven was as lovely as it always is in the kind of light we had today. My blip shows one aspect of it - the blue of the loch seen through the bare branches of a tree, with the dead grass in the foreground and a lone swan who seemed to be hovering in case we might have something for it. Later, a heron flapped low up the loch as the sun set behind the hills and the russet of the trees faded back to a dowdy brown. 

Home again as darkness fell, I hurried to change the duvets round - what a faff it is putting the covering on a king-size winter duvet, even if it is light. Then down to the kitchen to make my cake, for once actually doing the stirring on the liturgically correct day. (I'm joking). A quick bash up to the computer to rescue my place in Duolingo's diamond league; I've been too distracted this week to put in the time, and kept getting on-screen warnings that I was in the relegation zone. (I think I've managed to hang on; for some reason the week ends at 11pm these days instead of midnight and I'll be able to start again in the morning.)

Then I realised dinner was going to be late, and charged back down (I know - I'm getting too old to scamper downstairs, but ...) to roast potatoes and cook fillet steak burgers, which are a cop-out in a way but much easier for a carnivore with dodgy teeth than a proper roast. It was 9.15pm before I took my cake out of the oven and collapsed in front of (recorded) Doctor Who. I actually more or less followed it this week; I think the weeping angels are a wonderful creation although the cod physics leaves me cold. (Or is all that Quantum thingmy for real?)

Now I'm away to curl up under the winter Hungarian goose down with Hamnet till I fall asleep reading it ...

*Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen