Mind the gap

I think summer may be making a tentative return. Today was so mild - especially when the sun came out in the afternoon - that when we left the church after this morning's service, it was warmer in the car park than it had been inside. Our church always feels damp after rain, and we're economising on heating ... Perhaps this was why we all lingered so long; a visiting lady asked me if this was a representative congregation (yes) and marvelled at the liveliness of everyone. She turned out to have been a year below me at school, which is fairly extraordinary given that she was on holiday from Oxford - she even felt she remembered my name.

All this socialising had a knock-on effect on our lunchtime, as well as on our energy levels, so we decided just to go for a walk along the promenade to Kirn and back. First we went to see the ruins of the shops destroyed in Friday morning's fire - I took several photos, of which the one above shows the most features of the devastation. The Trading Post, run by my friend, was at the far end where the outline of the roof is black on the cream gable of the next building (Can you imagine what the people who live in the upper flat felt?) You can make out still the colour of the wallpaper, but that's all. The front windows of the shops still stood after the blaze, but the fire service pushed the walls down because they were unsafe. For residents like me, the shock of seeing the trees and buildings on the hill beyond is palpable. 

We met someone we knew, who told us that her son had been inside the shop nearest the camera when the roof fell in. He's a retained firefighter, and had put off telling her about it till well afterwards. We also learned that the cardboard boxes and packing stored behind the first shop en route to the tip had been pushed up against the back door of the building and set alight, so I hope - along with everyone in Dunoon, I think - that the court hands out a worthwhile sentence for arson. 

I've just finished watching the final, violent episode of Baptiste and the real-life horror that is Afghanistan. And Don Everly is dead. I now have an ear worm of  "All I have to do is dream"...

And I was in the right key.