Recovery

This was better! After yesterday's chilly stress, I slept late - didn't get out of bed till 8.45am. Can't remember when I last did that: I'd wakened at 7.15, clocked the time and the darkness, and immediately drifted off again. This, of course, makes for a short morning so I had to be brisk to make the most of the sunshine. Washing hung out, more in hope than expectation, quick FaceTime to check on #1 grandson, who was 12 today, another argument discussion about Christmas, coffee ... and then out, out into a brilliant blue, chilly morning and down to the shores of Loch Striven.

There I fairly early on abandoned Mr PB, still taking care of his knee, and strode out along the road on my own. I saw a bush of blue catkins (they really were blue, but the photo I took doesn't recognise this on such a bright day), a little gang of eider ducks setting off to swim across the loch, the glossy head of a seal before it vanished, a diver of some description (avian) which seemed to be accompanying me for some of the way, diving and resurfacing an improbably long distance on. I giggled at a heron (and yes, giggling while alone could get me shut away, but ...) because it was clearly annoyed by my continued advance alone the shore. It took off again every time I came up to where it had taken up a stance, flapping irritably off down the loch. (That's in my extra photo: there's a white diagonal line to the right of the tree which is the wings of the heron in flight).

After 8 km or so, I was hot enough to take off my jacket (the hat had gone some time earlier) and felt justified in not going out again after a late (and tiny) lunch. So I've made a parcel (all these people with birthdays before Christmas!) and done my Italian lessons and practised with Himself for tomorrow's communion piece and in the middle of all that a friend posted a photo of the moon rising and had me rushing to the window for my main blip. 

I never tire of the sight of the moon on the water, the town lights spread out along the shore, the twinkling of other lights on the Firth as ferries come and go and other ships anchor off the Tail of the Bank. Similarly, however trapped I often feel just now on this side of the water, cut off from family and the chances of the city, I never fail to have my spirits lifted by the walks along the bright shore or among the trees on a day such as this. But as the days shorten and life passes, as it were, without my taking much part in it, I feel ever more for our ancestors here, on the periphery of Europe, looking eastward for the light to return.

No wonder we light Advent candles.