Moonrise and many dogs ...

Sometimes I end up - I think we all do - posting some fairly banal photo because I've not taken one of any interest during the day, or not gone out, or been out in a downpour where getting out the phone is unthinkable. Today, however, I'm torn between the beautiful afternoon when sea and green things called to me and the dramatic moonrise I've just hung out of the bedroom window to photograph; looking out of the study window I can see it hanging, golden and curved like the illustration in a book over the Firth of Clyde. So the moon made it to the main event, and there's a collage of Blairmore shots as an extra. 

I've been very idle these mornings when there were no huvtaes, partly because I'm still zapping myself so as not to cough in the night, and today was no exception. However, I was galvanised once I was up by text messages from granddaughter Catriona, still in France - though now in Paris en route for the Channel - to tell us that she'd passed all her National 5 exams, with five As, a B and a C - the last two in Physics and Maths, for she is her grandparents' granddaughter! Later she sent us the percentages - do they amplify the marks these days? - and ... Well, let's just say I'm really proud of her. 

Buoyed up by this, perhaps, we then booked a holiday (at last) for January, an expensive holiday but sporting a discount because it's short notice and they were clearly filling spots. More anon, but not until we're on it. I danced along the road to the Co-op after coffee and bought thrilling items such as potatoes, non-dairy ice-cream with chocolate cookie dough pieces and sinful yogurt with fudge sauce that until recently was called Russian Toffee. 

In the afternoon I went out to play with Di and her two vociferous spaniels that have to be kept on the lead and which took an age to get along the road, sniffing and rootling around. We met our friend Paddy and her sister in the high road, with three dogs between them, at the very moment as we passed a house with two frenzied small creatures yapping wildly from behind a gate ...Hence half of the title, which might lead one or two of you to start wondering about the fat bulls of Bashan ...

We didn't walk very far, and my watch told me we'd walked at the pace of one mile in 36 minutes, which is absurd. But it was relaxed and amusing and we talked about very little of any consequence, also therapeutic. And then I made a piquant and rather interesting pasta with black olives, sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, chorizo, red wine vinegar, olive oil and parsley and sank into the sofa, replete and worn out...

And now I've woken myself up doing this. Idiot!