An integral part of life ..

These last few mornings I've opened the front door and felt it ... chilly. There's not been much sun first thing. And I've thought: will it rain today? Our forecast suggests it might ... and then it turns out to be - as today, for instance - a brief dampness as on a mountain top, and then it's gone and the sun comes out and I end up with the watering can again. Of all the unnatural manifestations of climate change, this persistent sunshine and drouth in the west of Scotland seems one of the strangest...

I mentioned last night that I'd made an assignation, but sadly this morning it was called off by text because one of the couple we were going to meet for coffee had been ill all night. A pity - we've not seen these people, former colleagues, for several years; it would have been a blast. I hope we can do something soon. Instead, we went for a modest walk round Innellan, just down the coast a bit, before lunch - which, once again, we were able to have in the garden.

This morning outing was because I was going for a hair appointment in Greenock in the afternoon - a strange experience, as I was the only person left in the salon by the time we were finished. We came home under the towering cumulus of an interesting sky, leaving a wide wake as we passed a stationary cargo ship (Finnish, if you're interested, with some strange large white cube in the midships area). I thought I should blip a photo of one of the ferries without which life here would be impossible; there's a long, narrow cabin, with toilets, in the right-hand side but it's basically a car ferry, very basic and very stable, which powers through pretty terrifying seas in winter.

I'm adding an extra which is a rather poor photo as I took it from my bedroom window. It shows how our pyromaniac, thoughtless neighbour thought he'd try weeding his front garden, which still has the roses in it planted by his father. Now 'tis an unweeded garden that grows to seed, and he thought he'd try burning the grass that the drought has turned to straw. It didn't seem to work very well, but he succeeded in filling my house with smoke smells before I could shut any of the windows. 

See neighbours?