Where can we live but days? *

One of the traits I recognise in myself since retirement is a tendency to regard my days as if they were holidays, with the possible exception of the days which have fixed points in them - Pilates, choir, painting - and expect only to amuse myself, fitting in the odd chore like cleaning the sink or putting on the washing in the way you do when actually you're off to some sun-kissed beach but just have to tidy up the holiday rental/hotel room first. This makes for haphazard housekeeping and weather-dictated cooking (I'm happy to stay in preparing a meal if it's raining or blowing a gale).

So I don't actually know what I achieved this morning, other than my Italian and washing up after breakfast. We did eat some lunch - pecorino cheese and avocado - and then scarred to catch some sunlight somewhere, as clouds were beginning to drift over us.We drove through fine drizzle in Innellan and found what we were looking for at Toward, walking along the shore road and out the Ardyne. 

The blip today is of a favourite tree. I always think there is a touch of a Constable landscape about it - this area to the south of Cowal is unlike the bit north of the Highland line, being farmland and deciduous woodland rather than forests and hills. Behind me when I took this was the sea, with the sun setting behind Bute, and the light was warm on the brown of the trees. There was a small gang of oyster-catchers hanging out together in the field, and earlier I'm sure it was a pair of peeweets flying overhead. It was incredibly peaceful, a total antidote to the stressful news that our cruise ship, which we should be boarding in Dubai in under two weeks, is currently stuck in Suez ...

We drove home under a pale pink sky, beside a pink-grey sea, the last light of the sunset fading swiftly behind us. When we arrived home, a narrow sickle of moon was just peeping above our holly tree. This is such a lovely place to be.

Still would like to get that holiday, though!

*Philip Larkin, Days