An air-sharpened blade...

I'll get to the title in a mo, but first I have to say that I chose this photo to blip today because there's hardly any cloud in it, so it's a sort of celebration. Not, of course, that this was a perfect day by any definition, punctuated as it was throughout by battering showers of sleet; there was snow on the hills and, as the day went on, a biting wind from a generally northerly direction. But I've been so sick of clouds and mist that I felt positively cheered by the sunny periods, the occasional rainbow, even the white of the snow on the hills.

After a dithery start, we decided to walk up to the church to re-do the recording that didn't materialise yesterday. It's not music: I'd been asked to read a story for a film that's being put together. Strictly speaking we didn't need to be in the church, but I rather like the ambience given by the cavernous acoustic. Watch this space and see if the film-makers tell me it doesn't suit their purposes ... 

Lunch was very late, so it was actually something like 4.30pm before we got out again because I feel dreadful if I sit around all day. That's why we drove south, to where the sunset usually gives more light than in the glens. The photo in the blip was taken along the Ardyne shore, at about 5.30 - so it really is light for much longer than it has been. The title is a line from Philip Larkin's poem Vers de Sociéte when he talks about 
      looking out to see the moon thinned   
To an air-sharpened blade, 
and it's a description that I find myself repeating, tediously, whenever I see that delicate shape. Just in case you think I'm getting too cosy, I should point out that the wind was absolutely biting, the temperature 2ºC, and that my hands were still numb with the cold even after we'd driven home. And then we walked down the garden in a blizzard ...

I'm going to stick in an extra here, because when I took it I was struck by the picturesque character of the bend in the road as we approach the church. Note the wording on the two signs - especially the red squirrel warning!

I'd just drunk most of my after-dinner coffee when Himself was struck by the thought that he'd used the wrong capsules. He had. It was delicious, but decaffeinated it was not. It's midnight now, and I'm wide awake. 

Time to start on the novel?