Making a break for it...

This recent gloomy wet warmth hasn't really seduced me to go out and revel in it these past couple of days, but staying indoors all day is very not me and renders me utterly bad tempered. Today, being assured by the weather forecast that it would become less wet and perhaps even brighter, I was determined to escape, though there are so many things needing attended to that it was a close run thing.

First there was the kitchen. I was going to ignore it again and do Italian instead, but there's a limit to the amount of water-staining that I can bear on the draining board (why did I buy the white sink unit all these years ago?) and once I'd done that the floor sort of girned at me to sweep it and then it was time for coffee, and Italian, and it was almost lunchtime before I got onto the present-wrapping.

Short digression on present-wrapping: I have memories from way back of doing this on the floor of the sitting room, of getting bits of furry hearthrug stuck onto the sellotape, of trying not to cut said hearthrug as I cut the paper. Why did I do this? One reason would be that I was sufficiently supple to squat on the floor for ages at a time; another was probably that I had waited till the children were in bed so that I had privacy; another that by that time in the evening the fire in the back room would have been banked up for the night (oh, the joys!) and it would feel too cold to go back in there. (We had no central heating till we'd retired). 

I managed to fit in two bursts of business to finish the wrapping for one family; the other will maybe be done tomorrow. But we managed to get out by 3pm and headed south mainly because the Benmore area, which we'd thought of going to, was suddenly enveloped in cloud. I took the photo above the moment I got out of the car, with the sudden bright opening in the sky making the coast of Bute into a black silhouette while the Arran hills were lost in the cloud. We marched briskly along the road to the Ardyne and out along the shore track for a bit before returning to the car parked at the school. A flight of seven Canada geese flew in creaking formation overhead and as the light faded the dead grass on the verge seemed to gleam with its own golden light.

I finished a few more parcels before dinner, Compline and last week's Portrait Artist of the Year, which I'd missed. I was most impressed with the winner's work - must pop into the Portrait Gallery to see it some time when we're in Edinburgh.

Now the midnight bird on my RSPB clock is twittering instead of hooting because Himself lost the instructions for changing the song when the clocks change ...