Left out

Heat warnings. Enthusiastic promises of really warm weather. Tonight's news, with photos of beautiful sunsets. And a BBC forecast on the app that promised dry weather and thin cloud. All nonsense if you live in Dunoon. At least it's going to be dry, I thought, as I stripped my bed and lugged everything - including the mattress protector - downstairs before breakfast. I still had faith when I took out the first batch - the duvet cover and pillowcases - out to the garden and carefully hung them in the way guaranteed to get even king-sized sheets uniformly dry; still, stupidly, despite a slight darkening of the overhead grey. And then it rained. And it went on raining, not violently or spectacularly but undeniably wetly, for several hours. I didn't take all the stuff in - where would I have put it in these pulley-free times? I took in the mattress cover and stuffed it into the tumble dryer so that I could at least re-make the bed ...

And then I began to feel it was a washout as a day anyway. I'd made bread and done the sheets and ... rescued: I did an extra half hour of Italian. I washed the basin in the en-suite and wiped down the mirror. I tinkered with a poem I wrote a few weeks ago and wrote another, experimentally - I'll let it brew a bit. I was sent my younger granddaughter's end-of-term report to read and feel proud: great stuff, Anna! I finished a sudoku and read some blips. The rain stopped.

Knowing that dinner was going to be quick and easy, consisting mainly of leftovers with pasta, we went out. The sky to the south was lighter, so there we went, slightly daunted by driving through some rain en route but arriving when there was even a tiny hint of brightness. Toward was still, the road empty, the birdsong amazing. We walked down through the fields towards the lighthouse, a thrush going through its entire repertoire in the wood beside the road. We met someone we've known for the best part of 50 years and stopped to chat - he's 90 now - about the passing of time and the difficulties it brings. Another thrush struck up. The sky to the north - where we live - was amazingly dark and lowering; you can see it contrasting with the vivid green of the field in front of me in the photo, a field they recently took grass off for silage. The flying boat passed over us, heading north (extra).

It was 7 o'clock by the time we got in; almost 8 when we sat down to eat. Far away, our younger son was taking off from Hong Kong, heading - eventually - for home. Tomorrow it may rain, though the app suggests a dry morning. Who knows?