And then the sun ...

I was fair spoiled for choice of photos today, almost all of them showing light on the water. When I was still in bed this morning I noticed the early sun turning the sea to glittering steel (yes - I had to get up and photograph it!), although the rest of the morning was uniformly grey and I though that was it. 

Not really the kind of weather one associates with Palm Sunday, but actually suitable enough on this day when we recall the fickleness of crowds (or the transience of hope?) and read the whole Passion gospel during the Eucharist, standing for the entire passage. Afterward the service, however, the usual warm/hilarious/solicitous interaction burst through, and it was approaching lunchtime when we all left. And then Di came as usual for coffee and we talked about politics (for once in complete accord!) and Twitter and the fascist tendencies of the woke ...

As a result it was after 4 o'clock that I felt I'd like a walk and we drove once again to Toward, to walk by the sea. It was a completely still afternoon, the water barely lapping on the shore, the only sound that of the birds - and even they weren't at all intrusive. In all we saw three herons flap silently and hugely over us, and another posing at the water's edge, as well as a pair of ducks streaking past flying in tight formation. We disturbed the silence for a good twenty minutes chatting with a couple whom we only know through meeting them at the Ardyne - the woman and I became friendly when we learned that we'd both had our tonsils removed on our respective kitchen tables! As we left them, the sun, which had been hovering on the edge of visibility for some time, broke through, and we walked the mile back to the car illuminated as if on a stage, while further downriver remained a dusky grey-blue. It was sufficiently lovely to render us both cheerful for the rest of the day ...

I've chosen to blip the view towards Bute from the Ardyne beach road, because the light on the low-tide sand and the clearly defined small boat appealed so strongly. I like that the photo looks monochrome until you see the blue sky to the left, and I love this bay at low tide anyway. It could just as easily been golden daffodils beside an old wall, or gorse on the shore ...

Hang on. I'm going to make a collage and have an extra ... #greatlydaring