Grisâtre

When I was in First year in secondary school, we had a French reader that told the story of Jean Bonnard, Petit Ecolièr, which we must've begun to read about the October of that first term of learning our first foreign language. In the first chapter we were told that he had an old horse called Grisâtre, which made my mother laugh immoderately (she spoke pretty fluent French and found the idea of a horse called Greyish deeply funny.) 

That word, that I've not actually read since, came into my head as we went out in the torrential rain at the end of the afternoon, both feeling ever so slightly stir crazy, and walked under umbrellas in the windless wet down to the West Bay shore, where there was not another soul but where we had a view of hope, in that away to the south down the Firth there was a line of light ... So I took two photos of it, showing the light on the Ayrshire coast (top) and over Arran (bottom) over the still grey sea. 

This morning I got a lift to my painting class, arriving late because both of us had slept for a full eight hours last night and hadn't wakened up because it was so gloomy. I made progress, I think, with this sizeable mountain-scape in acrylic paint - my teacher whips it up from in front of me to hold it up at a distance, and I have to say I'm amazed at the way rather unpromising brush strokes turn into glistening crags (I'm painting mountains) when you're not staring at them from a foot away. I had intended posting it today, but I've decided it can wait till I've finished dealing with it. There were only three of us today - two students and the teacher, all women, all ending up in stitches after a sombre start. Very therapeutic. 

Not in bed by midnight tonight - must try harder!