Misty

Today has been notable for various national headlines, but in Dunoon merely for the mist that has hung around all day in such a way that we might have thought we were in Edinburgh ... I think I'll used up another extra with a shot I've just taken as I locked up; it looks as though a pancake of mist is sitting on the northern end of town.

I felt I achieved very little today; I was tired, for a start, and there were no pressing huvtaes to galvanise me. I did a little ironing that had been mocking me in the spare room, and then felt moved to dust in there as well, and I washed the duster and hung it in the damp garden. Oh - and I poached some pears to soft deliciousness ...

But my blip comes from a walk in the Bishop's Glen in the afternoon. This is where the old reservoir is (our water now comes from Loch Eck) and when we were in our early years here I took our firstborn in his buggy up the glen, which is only 10 minutes' walk from our house, to pick brambles on the steep bank of the upper reservoir, which has now been restored to its natural form of trees and burn. I left the buggy, and the toddler, at the top of the bank, and was right down almost at the water when the thought occurred to me that if I fell in no-one would know where I was and Neil would never be found ... I didn't fall in. Appropriately, given the name, our church sits on a little hill at the foot of the glen, which was presumably named for the Bishop's palace (residence) which used to occupy a site near Dunoon Primary School. It's a rather magical place, especially on a misty afternoon with the brilliant green of moss and the bright glow of last year's copper beech leaves, while the blaeberry plants are growing to small forests among the trees. And there was a robin singing...

We had an amusing encounter at the top bridge on the path, when two ladies (they were definitely ladies) appeared from the other side, both carrying large laundry bags out of which poked branches of greenery. We smiled politely as we passed, until I said "church ladies?" and they fell about as we shared our similar activities collecting ecclesiastical bits of tree and  moss. Definitely what Barbara Pym would have called "excellent women". *

Apart from that, I've done Italian, cooked dinner and attended online Compline. My head hurts and I feel as if I've done a day's work. Clearly, I grow old ...

Or something.

*If you've never tried Barbara Pym's books, you can get them here and read about her and her books here. I wept with laughter the first time I read one.