The innocent flower

I suppose if I'm going to preface a blip with a mysterious title I ought to explain it right away ... When I took this photo, in the middle of the afternoon that would soon turn to dusk (eg before we got back to the car) I was aware that this bright beacon of gold on the gloomy shore was a great patch of the dreaded Japanese Knotweed, which keeps popping up in unwanted clumps on the disturbed soil of the verge, and suddenly Lady Macbeth's admonition to her husband came into my head: 
Look like th’ innocent flower,
But be the serpent under ’t.”
Being aware of the serpently nature of this plant, and its nasty habit of transferring itself to where it's not wanted, I felt its roots were akin to serpents ... 
So there you are.

The day began with much less sinister undertones, though the lessons set by the lectionary for today's service were appropriately severe for our world as it stands at the moment, and the sermon quite the most masterly I've heard on the parable of the master who left his three servants a huge sum of money to look after while he was away. Not surprisingly I found myself thinking of present-day Palestine/Israel, now as then a country under occupation, and of what a hard row we have to sow if we want to follow Christian precepts, and of how mistaken people are who think the Christian faith is a soft option ...

Around these two points in the day I entered an interesting online discussion on a word in an early poem by R.S.Thomas (at breakfast - unwise when one has to get out), and read the strange story in the local paper of how a local man who requires secure accommodation after a life of mental problems and criminal convictions is going to be sent to ... Croydon. From Argyll. Handy, eh?

I roasted a chicken for dinner, and the best roast potatoes I've made in a while. Note to self: in winter it's worth being home in time to do this, cos it was delicious. And then I watched an episode of The Cobra Rebellion and some of a programme about what happened in the aftermath of Kennedy's assassination. Mind-boggling stuff; I'll watch the rest when I'm more awake.

In other words, not now ...