There came both wind and rain ...

No, not snow, despite the tempting thoughts of The Ancient Mariner - I just can't resist a quote, even if it's not quite right. The perils of a mind full of snippets; my mother could quote Browning's poetry to a band playing, and I grew up with literary allusions casually surfacing in dinner-time conversations about the day's happenings. I remember when I first saw Doctor Faustus I realised that it was full of known quotations ... But enough of this meandering, though it was a dreary enough day not to give me much else to write about.

I actually went back to sleep briefly this morning, after drinking my tea and doing the morning's stint of Italian; bed was too comfy and the rain was battering the windows. When I surfaced again it was 9am, so very little was accomplished before coffee time. However, stimulated by a hefty burst of caffeine, I then bought travel insurance for the holiday Himself booked last week; I always feel relieved when that's out of the way. I got over £100 off too, because I had an email just today trying to lure me into insuring some travel or other - these things never usually happen when they're needed.

The rain had stopped by lunchtime, and by 3pm there was actually some sun, so we headed down to Toward for a minimalist leg-stretch, only to find that the next massive cloud was making its way north towards us. I took the photo above fairly early on, when the sun was still with us, but we're heading towards that dark sky which burst on us just before we'd thought of turning back. We were heartily soaked by the time we got back to the car. But I have to point out that a year ago today I was swimming off that very beach in that very bit of sea and it was a flat calm under a hot sun. I'll stick the photo on as an extra if it's accepted - it is, after all, 365 days out.

We listened to tonight's Prom with dinner - Schumann's Piano Concerto. It's one of a group of pieces in which I feel I know every note, not from playing them but from listening. When I first started buying serious music rather than pop records (6/4d a single) they cost about £1 for the cheap re-issues on labels like Ace of Clubs. I didn't have a lot of pocket money, so I couldn't afford to splash on lots of records and chose carefully (and, I now realise, rather oddly). I had an EP of the Karelia Suite that my friends clubbed together to give me for a birthday, and 4 LPs: a selection from Carmen (why?); Beethoven's Violin Concerto; Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony and the Schumann Piano Concerto. I still have them. I can sing along with them, but don't (and if you've met Himself you'll know why). 

I also realised (at the interval) that I can recite Wordsworth's The Solitary Reaper. Now that really was a surprise!