Dear diary, what a day it's been ...

Today was a planned trip to Glasgow, which meant once more doing battle with ice, salt spray and unwilling skooshers - not to mention to low sun driving down Loch Lomondside. Still, all under control until the traffic jam occasioned by the A82 being closed towards the Erskine Bridge, and traffic backing up beyond Lomondgate. Eventually re-traced my steps to head round via Balloch and Milngavie, only to find more roads closed and ended up approaching the city through Possil, probably the least attractive of all routes. About an hour-and-a-half later than planned, so missed my haircut appointment, but managed to find an alternative place with a novel approach to overcharging.
Any road up, I managed to do everything I needed to in town and treated myself to a nice curry for lunch. And the roads looked good for the drive home.
This is the view from Loch Shira, north of Inveraray, looking out to Loch Fyne.
I thought I was in for a pleasant and uninterrupted drive home, only to find the main road closed north of Kilmartin due to a serious collision and a police investigation. There is an alternative, single-track route through the hills, but that can choke very quickly because it simply cannot handle the traffic on the main road. I tried it, but turned back when told that it was impassable with head-to-head lorries.
I made as far as the Kilmartin Hotel, where I decided to wait it out. I shortly decided that I could actually walk home, about 5 miles, but it would involve taking the coach road to Carnasserie, because I don't think the polis would be too cheerful about random pedestrians walking through their crime scene on the main road. I bumped into a lady who lived further along the road from me and she was up for the walk as well. I had a couple of good torches in the car, as well as spare hi-vis, so off we set. It took ab out half an hour to walk through the creepy woods, past the creepy abandoned caravan and past the creepy ruined castle to get to the road end. There was still a long queue of (mainly) lorries stacked up the brae with no indication of when they'd be able to got going again. A friend came and picked us up and saved us the 3 mile walk up the glen.
Home 3 hours late, but H had been taken in and fed by S next door, and was happily watching the gogglebox when I got home. I'll either walk down or get a lift down in the morning to collect the car; it'll come to no harm and the shopping won't hurt in these temperatures.
Very grateful today for friends and neighbours and the way Scottish communities look after one another.