Calm between systems

This was my bedroom view this morning, looking north over the roofs of Dunoon at the pristine whiteness of the hills - they were looking more spotted by late afternoon as the temperature rose. The whole day was utterly calm, with smoke rising vertically from chimneys and no feeling of a breeze anywhere, until after dark. Now it's blowing up quite wildly again, and the rain's back - but at least we escaped much of the damage suffered in England. I saw a couple of roof-edgings dangling, but that's all.

The morning scudded past - I really don't know what has happened to my sense of time - but I was determined to get in a walk in the dry after lunch. We had thought of Benmore Gardens, but it had its big yellow NO ENTRY sign u[ because of the danger of falling branches, and though there were people inside and little chance of being (a)hit by a tree or (b) upbraided by a gardener, we decided instead to walk along the loch side as far as the water works. This is a walk I used to love, but they've been cutting down diseased larch trees (phytophthora ramorum) and it's a sorry mess at the moment. 

I watched the 10 o'clock news before I came up, appalled by the sight of the charlatan in No 10 posturing à la Churchill about the threat of war in Ukraine. How can we take anything he says seriously, when we know he's delighted to put up distractions from his own sorry existence? He and Biden - who also seems, sadly, to have a tenuous grasp on his presidency - are being hawkish while everyone else urges calm, or so it seems. Johnson is a terrifying leader for any country at any time, let alone in a period of tension. And now he's set on announcing the end of restrictions on Covid+ people ...

Enough. I'm in a terrible mood. I need to go and read myself into torpor.