Drooping ...

Funny how one can forget in six months just how horrid a vaccination can make one feel ... let's just say that the sore arm became less sore as today went on, but the malaise has just returned with a vengeance in the beastly way that all such feelings do, in the evening. Never mind - better that than the 'rona, and better that than the angst of feeling vulnerable.

That said, I didn't really get going today until after elevenses - all I did was sit in front of the fire and put an early shift in on the Italian. Himself was out practising the organ - no rest for the wicked holy, and there's a visiting choir coming ... I was just contemplating doing something useful when Di phoned, having not been in touch since Sunday because of having a visitor, and we caught up on our lives before she went off to hang her washing on the pulley because the rain had come on, and left me to go and write Intercessions for Sunday.

After lunch, because we were both feeling that indeterminate way that a walk might cure, we followed a slight brightness in the sky down to Toward and found sunshine. Actually it was rather lovely: the smell of wet earth and new growth mixed with the sea smells; the birds in the Castle woods giving it laldy; and a huge, wide sky tumbling with towering white cumulus and menacing with distant rain which miraculously stayed to the south of us. We could see the purple clouds we'd left behind in Dunoon and felt ... smug.

Blipping the patch of red sandstone that makes its appearance among the grey rocks on Toward seashore - it called to me, with that patch of vivid green seaweed, called me down off the road through the rough grass and stones to admire and record its white seams and drifts of stone through the red.

Now the midnight owl (on the bird clock!) has called and I'm feeling shivery. Bed calls, beguilingly ...