I wanted a sunset ...

Where I live, I don't really see sunsets - just the afterglow of summer sunset on the other side of the Firth. Most of the walks we go to the north of Dunoon likewise face away from the west, but today the perfect sky and the possibility of some afternoon sun tempted us down to walk along the first part of the Loch Striven road - too far inland and we'd be in the shadow of the hills.

At first it looked as if the sun would just slip below the horizon - or in this case the hills of Bute - without any  drama. But as we walked, carefully because of icy patches where the sun hadn't been, the sky became more and more dramatic, culminating in this glorious, unfiltered outburst of colour not long after we arrived back at the car. 

My extra photo was taken at the start of the walk and is included simply because I can't bear to leave it out. Today was so lovely I'm about to upload the whole lot onto my Flickr photo stream...

And the whole day the temperature never rose higher than 1ºC.