Slip slip slidin' along ...

My Facebook feed was suddenly peppered this morning with the cries of the aged - or, in other words, my friends, all of whom are a bit younger than me, warning of sheet ice in their gardens - one had already had a mishap when she didn't realise - as well of a gas leak on the only road south to where we were yesterday and along which I had thought we might go again for a walk. Apparently the leak was caused by a lorry - I don't quite know how. 

It was another lovely morning, though there was rather more cloud about, as you can see from the photo. I took it as we were driving down from the High Road into Sandbank on our way, yet again, to Benmore Gardens at midday. Having been prevented from reaching the shore road on Loch Striven, where I thought the sun might have melted the ice, we felt that the rough nature of the paths and the warming effect of vegetation would give us a chance of a walk. (I've said before how horrid I find it to have turned into An Old Person Who Might Take A Fall And Break Something.) Anyway, I love this sudden view of the hills around Loch Eck, and the contrast of the white snow with the darker clouds was rather appealing - the more so retrospectively as the clouds cleared and we had unbroken sunshine while we were there. 

We climbed to the Andean refuge overlooking Glen Massan and sat as the sun dipped behind the hills admiring the ribbon of cloud below us in the glen, like the fatter one that seemed to snake all the way from Loch Eck to the Holy Loch, presumably because of temperature inversion. We had three unexpected chats with total strangers - a couple with a dog, who told us a walk we'd not done around Strachur; a young woman who worked in the gardens, striding along in her wellies and stopping to share how beautiful it was and how wonderful the smell from the grass as the frost had broken it up; a couple sliding gingerly over the bridge that we'd come over earlier and were about to use to return to the car. That in fact was the most threatening moment of all, as the planks were covered in black ice; in the garden the odd open bits of ice were easily avoided by walking on the grass verges or among the trees.

We came home to Christmas cake and tea, after which Himself returned to his organ practice and I turned my attention to a sermon I've to preach in ten days. The OT reading is particularly challenging in a way I find much of them these days, with all the references to Zion and how the chosen people  were to triumph. (The whole exercise was rendered even more challenging by my own stupidity in getting the date wrong, but that's another matter altogether.)

And that, I think, is my self-designated holiday over. The weather is going downhill again, and there are things to do, people to see. I want to find a celeriac (there were none when I shopped) and a new bird feeder or two. And school goes back on Monday, though the only classes I'll be involved with is my Pilates class. I have an airport hotel booking to make, and timings of a concert to ascertain. I need to come out of my torpor and start making meals from scratch again. And there's another loaf needing made ...

Enough already. Bed...