A wee contrast ...

Hmm. Perhaps the walk that resulted in the photo above - and perhaps some extras - redeemed this day, but it really wasn't the day I'd hoped for. I knew the weather was going to be against us, but I had hoped that we might make a trip to Glasgow to meet #2 son and family at the Art Galleries - they'd never been, and I thought it would be fun to show them where I spent more wet Saturday afternoons in childhood than I care to remember. But when I woke and heard the wind and rain already battering the back of the house, my heart failed me and I simply went out for the early supermarket shop and gave up on the adventure. They had a lovely time, the 14 y/o got her second vaccination en route, and we felt ... well. You can imagine.

It actually became less windy as the afternoon advanced, so we went out just because. This is the view back towards Dunoon from the East Bay promenade at the beginning of Kirn, with a huge rain storm heading up river but - we hoped - mainly on the other side of the Firth. We got pretty wet, but at least we were out. The extras show (1) the lights of ships moored off the Tail of the Bank and (2) the Dunoon palm trees thrashing about under a tiny sliver of moon - a real "air-thinned blade" - just before it is swallowed in cloud.

That quote (Larkin: Vers de Societé, I think) reminds me that I still have work to do on preparation for my next course of Poetry Workshops. They begin in the middle of the month, and I spent some time this morning selecting possible texts to study. Light in the gloom!

Happy Epiphany!