The shades of night ...

Or, as they say here, "the nights are fair drawin' in"... It's Cowal Games weekend, though I have to say that apart from the slight sense of extra traffic on the ferry yesterday afternoon there is very little sign of anything at all right now. When the boys were young the Thursday evening was given over to the Sunset Ceremony in Argyll Gardens on the front, with pipers and dancers and - once - Himself playing an organ while being raised up on a fork lift truck operated by the local Scouts ... and we could hear every note, every loudspeaker announcement from the house. Not heard a cheep tonight. We shall see, but like the town itself I think the Games are a diminished affair these days.

After my early shopping trip, I had to finish my breakfast pronto before the Organist and the Rector of Holy Trinity Dunoon had a meeting over my dining room table ...which, being interpreted, meant organising the music-involving events between now and Christmas, with me putting it all on the calendar. It was, I have to say, much more fun than it sounds - even if I had to rush swearing from the room to rescue the towels I'd hung on the line from a sudden downpour a whole two hours earlier than the BBC Weather app had suggested it would rain.

Threatened showers notwithstanding, we went for a walk along the shore road in the afternoon and actually managed not to be rained on at all until we'd parked at the house and had to run down the garden in the second downpour of the day. By the time we were eating dinner (salmon, Ayrshire potatoes, steamed Pak Choi, Scottish raspberries) it had settled down to be a wet evening, though I was tempted by a last glimpse of blue sky to take the photo above. I liked the slight bleakness of the garden contrasting with the warmth of the reflected corner light on a red chair, with only the raindrops in focus.

Real arty-farty stuff today, huh?