Forecast: rain

I was still at breakfast this morning when I heard the abbreviated weather forecast on BBC Radio Scotland. It was going to be pretty cloudy with showers in the West, with some snow on the hills. Something like that. I looked out at the back garden, where the sun was just moving round to light up the new growth on the lilac tree. I recalled that half an hour earlier I'd taken my customary morning photo - of gleaming, metallic sea under a bright, unimpeded sun. Hmm.

Thing was, we didn't actually have any rain all day - again. I spent a big chunk of the morning with the back door open, scrubbing the floor under the pedal bin, taking the interior door mat outside to brush and scrub it, washing a bit of wall that gets spattered if someone is careless while throwing out - what? Who knows? And the sun shone on, drying wet floor brush, cloths, the floor, the mat ... And we had our coffee outside too. And then yes, a big cloud came over and I went indoors and did other things - but it didn't rain.

Despite the fact that my legs were screaming gently from all the bending over (gardening and domesticity), I couldn't resist a walk any more than Himself could, and once more we set off southward because that's where the sky seemed brighter. We could see heavy clouds over The Other Side; we could see showers in various locations, but not where we were. We walked up the road between the farms at Ardyne, where a tractor was busy doing whatever tractors do at this time of year, followed by a halo of seagulls. When the tractor stopped - because another tractor had gone down the track between the fields to talk - there was silence, broken only by birdsong. Once or twice a car passed, and The Usual Cyclist (there really is one - we always exchange greetings) flew past in a blur of Lycra. The light was amazing, the Arran hills - about to be attacked by friends who have just arrived on the island for their first visit - sharply defined. We took our jackets off and carried them.

When we got back to the car, we dumped our jackets in it and continued our walk along the beach road for a short distance, but returned because huge, purple, dramatic clouds were heaping up over the hills all round us. I began to think I'd not need to water the newly-planted pots. But we drove up the road and the clouds were still over the hills and not the coast and not one drop was shed. And by the time we were eating our dinner it was sunny again.

And I watered the pots after all.