Ye fearful saints ...

For a day which I often consider a lazy day, a less troublesome day, there seems to have been too much going on, though much of it wasn't actually requiring anything of me - all this new stuff about Omicron and preventative measures, and Jason Leitch pointing out that a small percentage of a large number would still produce a larger number than if the original number had been smaller ... It makes perfect sense, but I suspect too many people lack that sense. Ah well. And then there's the Tory party, and the new Johnson baby (which number of child is she?) - and the interesting line that if the Tories got rid of BJ, the party would be strengthened. We need to be on our own ...

I escaped the radio by a bit of carpe diem, in that the sun was suddenly and unexpectedly shining just as we finished our coffee and I decided to drop everything and go out. What I didn't know was that Rothesay had been getting heavy showers, so when I started bashing along the shore road (leaving Himself to be more sedate) I began to think I'd be soaked before I met up with him again. 

In the event I escaped, and got some great photos, of which the above is one. I can't sing the hymn God moves in a mysterious way  without getting the giggles at the third verse; today I've probably made it worse by rewriting the words as I took photos of huge showers falling on Bute and Cumbrae. I offer it to you, with apologies to anyone who finds herself unable to sing it next time it comes along:
Ye fearful saints fresh courage take,
    The clouds ye so much dread
Are big with mercy, and shall break
   On someone else's head.
There you are. Perfect scansion and all. (I'm very fussy about scansion.)

I ended the day with a discussion over dinner about our university days. It began with the recollection that I first heard about existential angst in the Modern Languages Lecture Theatre in Glasgow University, where we were studying Sartre. I was 19 when I matriculated, but I know now that I was far too young to benefit from university in any but the social sense. I skated over the potentially fascinating areas of study that I'd now give anything to be able to join in, and despite getting a first class ticket in English, a bye in Unprepared Translation in Latin, a commendation for my map work in Geography - despite all that, I learned nothing like what I've since discovered. Sad, innit?

Oh - when I finished my walk, I got home and found that the pyromaniac neighbour had started burning his rubbish so that smoke and smuts were drifting over my washing on the line. I shouted at him.

He didn't like it. 

Good day, eh?