The clouds ye so much dread ...

I don't know if it's living here wot does it, but there are a couple of doggerel lines from a hymn that spring unbidden to mind when I see a sky like this: "the clouds ye so much dread/Are big with mercy, and will break/in blessings on your head." (There is a great deal of doggerel in far too many once popular hymns - should we go back to the Latin?) These splendidly menacing clouds arrived this morning but in fact didn't break at all, even though I took in my washing in anticipation ... but I get ahead of myself.

We had Plans for this morning. Get up briskly - because Saturday is no different from other days to retired people - have breakfast, and go out before coffee to practise a bit of music for tomorrow in the church because Himself needed to work out the stops for the organ part. All planned - and all blown gloriously off course by two joyous episodes of socialising. First came a lovely long phone call from #1 son, waiting for younger grandson to finish his cricket session. That was fine - I got the dishes done and we were still on course, though coffee was going to be late. We thought we'd walk - it was a gloriously sunny morning but we'd been warned it might well rain. Get the walk in while it's nice ...

We got halfway along the back road and no further. Our friends, the ones we haven't seen for ages, the ones who were among the very first friends we had in Dunoon all of 47 years ago, were in their garden. We stopped, we chatted, we admired their new mega-shed, we chatted some more. We laughed. We made arrangements to have aperos together the next warm late afternoon, when we could enjoyably sit in their garden. It was lovely. And we then turned, went home, had coffee - and took the car up to the church.

We've been late ever since. Lunch, post-prandial snoozing, walk, dinner. All late. And you know something? I don't care.

And the clouds didn't rain on us till evening.