Brief Spring...

Today was the first day this year that I've been aware of the sun rising in time (ie far enough north) to shine actually into my bedroom - and this before I was sufficiently awake to see what time it happened. The light first thing was amazing - a sort of green-bluey-gold - and I think I'll put a photo of it as an extra.

My main photo above is of Loch Striven, a couple of minutes into the walk we managed to get out to do before midday (I'd seen the weather forecast). Although I couldn't be doing with Wordsworth at school or at university, and don't think I've ever taught one of his poems, I had a Wordsworthian moment contemplating the great swathes of daffodils among the dead bracken in this photo: how do they get there? Do daffodils actually grow wild (and if not, how do we now have cultivated ones?) and if not, who put these there? I resisted the temptation to romp through the brown fronds to pick some - it looks just the sort of place ticks would survive the winter and be waiting for me. We walked further than we have in a while, so that I'm not sure if it was that that has made my legs ache so badly this evening, or it it was the awkward bending and crouching yesterday as I attacked the ivy in the garden. There was a heron screeching in a tall tree, and another flapped heavily along the shore-line as we looked; there were also several fallen trees that hadn't been there last year, including one that had fallen right across the road and very recently been sawn to allow cars to pass. 

After walking till the turnaround in warm sunshine, we then walked back towards the clouds that were clearly arriving from the south-east; the first drops of rain landed on the windscreen just as we left our parking spot. (A spot where we've been parking for 45 or so years but which we'll be unlikely to use again - I was picking up broken glass left by jolly wild campers before - just before - it ended up in our tyres. And then there was that broken camp-chair ...

We drove more or less with the rain as it headed north and just beat it to my washing, which I'd left on the line in bright sunshine. I fried a couple of sourdough flatbreads to eat with hummus and tomato and celery sticks to sustain himself through a bout of organ practice (he marched off in the by now torrential rain) while I read for a bit and watched a webinar about the Old Testament and Zionism. 

And that was that, really. It's still raining hard, but - and I'm sure Lady Findhorn will be glad to know this - it's only 11.15pm and I'm off to bed.