Changing weather

Goodness, this morning was lovely! Perfect blue sky, not a cloud - and though the temperature was only 10ºC I spent half an hour sitting in the garden doing Italian at noon and was really warm in the sunshine. Mind, when I went to seen the optician after that, the wind at the front of the house made me wonder if I'd been dreaming the warmth ...

I have to give a shout out to our optician. I was told to turn up just before 1pm and be prepared just to wait, which is what I did - and was rewarded by a 30 minute inspection of my sore eye - vision, range, pressure as well as the flashing light and the yellow dye that I didn't realise was trickling down my cheek as I headed back up the road. She also referred me to the consultant in Inverclyde, so though it still hurts I feel less stressed by it. And as I left I realised I'd taken up half their lunch break ...

We went to Loch Striven after lunch and had a glorious walk along the shore road. The rowan berries were almost luminously red, and even the holly trees were sprouting berries, as the last of the brambles gleamed at us and whole families of pheasants startled us into jumping as they suddenly decided to be wary of us and took noisily to the air. The tide was very high, so that the loch - it's a sea loch - came right up to the grass of the shore rather than the shingle beach. As we turned to come home, we noticed the looming cloud to the south, presumably belonging to the rain that's been falling in England. That's when I saw the white sails of a small yacht against the dark hills of Arran rising beyond Bute and the towering shapes of the purple clouds - and got my photo for today.

Actually I took a great many photos - I was trying out the "Portrait" mode on more distant subjects than any portrait to see what would happen. Mostly it worked well. We had dinner quite briskly, got to online Compline, and subsided into chairs. That's when I realised we'd not had any dozes or snatched sleeps after lunch - no wonder I feel so droopy.

Poor old soul, eh?