From start to finish

It's always like this as the end of the year approaches - and no, I don't just mean the sense of urgency brought on by learning of fellow-blipper's having already made their Christmas cake; I'm talking about the careful rationing out of extra photos so that you don't waste them by having some left over at the end of the year but don't run out at a time when you might need them. Talk about 21st century problems ...

It began very promisingly, if not very early (these late, high-as-a-kite nights have their morning pay-back), so I've used my extra on a shot out of the back bedroom window, just because the colours were so lovely. Ignore, if you will, the shambles that is my neighbour's garden; the garages are both utterly dilapidated and I'd love them to fall down, and neither he nor his neighbour have the least interest in gardening, but look at the trees, and at the hills beyond, bathed in the warm light of the sunrise ...

And then look at my main blip, which is the sunset over Bute at about 4.30pm, taken from the road at Toward Primary School after a walk that kept being interrupted by my stopping to look back and take yet another photo as the sky went from gold to pale pink to this amazing colour. The hills of Arran are a delicate grey in the lower left corner, and the sky is on fire. I can't resist a walk, even when - as I've said before - it's too late, and I can't resist a sunset.

In between these two photos the day just scooshed past - I did a washing and hung it out, taking it in again a couple of hours later far wetter than I'd left it; the rain sort of appeared out of the blue and took me by surprise. I was out at the shops in between, buying an absurd but appealing stocking-filler (a request) and having a chat with a delightful young man who's a new pharmacist in one of the chemists in town (we have four in one street!) about the vagaries of feet (mine) which spent their formative years in killer heels with pointy toes. All the years of walking haven't helped, and I had an urgent need of some Compeed to sort out a new problem which I feel may be permanent. 

Did I mention the news I had from my Fitbit the other day? I seem, in the years since I acquired it, to have walked the length of the Trans-Siberian railway line. Now, if I'd really done that ...