Vanishing gold

I took several lovely photos of sunrise today - not really sunrise, but a wonderful line of light among the mists of the Other Side and the hills to the north - but although I'm happy to post them every morning on Instagram with a greeting, I'm more inhibited about that here... maybe an extra will find its way yet.

I sat in bed doing Italian and pottering around Twitter for a whole hour today: I wasn't in bed till 1am and for some reason Himself wanted to be up as if he was going to work and brought me tea in time for me too to be at a desk by 9am, but I was having none of it. I had time to wash some things and hang them out in the still, dank garden (where they didn't really dry), have a long phone call with a friend - a Big Conversation rather than chit-chat - and measure out the fruit for the Christmas cake and drown it in sherry. I couldn't help noticing that a task I've been doing for exactly fifty years seemed slightly more elusive when it came to remembering what went in to it, but I can clearly recall making the first one in our little flat in Glasgow when I was fairly recently on maternity leave before the birth of our firstborn. (I'm sure I've told the tale before: I'd slipped on ice earlier in the day and my coccyx was so sore I couldn't sit down so started making a cake instead).

Met Di out at Benmore Gardens in the afternoon; because she's fitter (younger!) than us she tends to choose the steep far-away path up the hillside, which is where I got this shot across towards the north of the mist forming somewhere above the fernery. I thought it looked mysterious and lovely, and we didn't see a soul until we were back down on the level and thought we saw people on the far side of the pond. They seemed to have vanished by the time we got there ...

We stood in the darkening car park for ages before leaving, arguing about the war in Palestine/Israel. Not one but two tame robins came and wandered about the ground at our feet like benign spirits until we finally desisted and climbed into our cars. I then had to sit in the dark for an age de-misting the windows: the car was valeted yesterday, if you recall, and the seats are still damp, meaning that as I warmed it up a bit the windows became impossible. I put on the seat heaters as well as the air-con and hoped for the best, though I sat on a folded towel as a precaution.

My last act when I got in was to order a birthday present for my grandson. I have four birthdays to attend to before I think about Christmas ...