Fiddling

Amazing how much better a day feels after one has slept properly - I wasn't in bed till 1am last night and don't even remember composing myself for sleep, don't remember anything until Himself appeared bearing tea and I was in mid-dream. Despite the rain pouring resolutely down the windows, I gathered together a washing and headed downstairs ...

The morning was taken up by minor admin, a phone call  and getting a bag ready for going off tomorrow. All this time it remained grim outside - there was no temptation to stray. But after lunch the sky suddenly cleared in the maddening way it does these days (maddening because it works both ways) and we headed out, not really knowing our destination till we could look at the bigger view. In the end we chose a walk that we've not done much recently, largely because of untethered dogs suddenly appearing miles ahead of their owners and making a nuisance of themselves. Kilmun Arboretum looks a tad neglected these days, though it may be the effect given by great clumps of eucalyptus that have grown hugely tall and sway alarmingly and with much creaking in the wind. Several have blown down recently, and though the worst debris has been removed there are curls of grey bark and trails of grey-green leaves everywhere. At one place there was a strong smell of something resembling Izal, but no warning signs, and the area of some very fuzzy evergreens is looking very packed now the trees have grown. A noticeable feature was the vigour of the burns purling down the steep hillside - I couldn't resist the above photo of a pounding waterfall below me, with the light refracting in a million drops. As we passed the last tall clump of trees on our way down there was a terrifying screech overhead and a heron appeared, flapping lazily from the tops, closely followed by another. Himself thinks their eldritch call seems a suitable one to come from such a long neck, especially at the angle they carry their heads while flying. I still find it hard to think of them perching up there in the heronry...

Home to the news of the boorach in the Commons this afternoon. (Spelling of that useful word is disputed, but I'm going with The Herald and Katie Morag.) Because it's hard to follow a story from the BBC bongs as you negotiate a slippery downward track I haven't really fathomed every twist and turn, but it seems to me that the SNP, whose motion it was to demand a ceasefire in Gaza, was shabbily treated by a Speaker who didn't want his own party to be embarrassed. Hence the title of this blip - because it seems to me that there's a global orchestra of people fiddling while Gaza burns. And then there's the Trident missile ...