Afternoon sky

The new, very large window in our double height dining area was replaced today - a red letter day, as the crumbling, warped and draughty single-glazed window we inherited finally gives way to a beautifully made, double-glazed and redesigned hardwood window, with better proportioned panes giving a clearer view of the valley and the sky. It made for a disrupted day, of course, with a large hole in the house on the coldest day of the year so far; our dining room, kitchen, sitting room and hall are only semi-separate open spaces, with my gallery study above, so only the bedrooms could be kept warm. J was cosy in her room with her PA, P had cooked lunch in advance, and I spent quite a lot of hours on the bed with my laptop trying to catch up with emails and admin tasks. My morning walk up the hill was overcast and the photos were rather dull, but after lunch, as I picked vegetables and tidied bits and pieces in the garden, the sun broke through and I turned to find a beautifully dappled sky. It's hard to get a photo in this direction without the cables, so I've tried to make a virtue of necessity and capture the best of the sky and the golden light on the landscape. 

We knew it would take a long time for the house to warm up, so with cold night time temperatures forecast J and I ate in her bedroom. I chose the movie, After Love, a British independent film starring Joanna Scanlon as Mary, who as a young woman converted to her husband's Muslim faith and integrated with his family. He was a ferry captain, and after his sudden death she discovers that he had a relationship with a woman in Calais and goes to investigate. It won several BAFTAs in 2021 and I thought the story was well told and very well acted. It's on BBC iPlayer for a few more days.