All before the rain ...

These days it often feels as though I'm fitting my life in between showers or - as they say on the weather forecasts - longer periods of rain. And on this particular day it felt as if it could've been early November as far as temperature goes. I couldn't say if it had anything at all to do with the weather, but the moment I woke this morning I was assailed by the most appalling cramp that went all the way from the side of my foot right up to my thigh and lasted through a despairing stomp round the bedroom and back into bed, where it went on being sufficiently painful to make me get up about half an hour before I really wanted to. What brought that on, I wonder?

I spent quite some time on useful pottering, with our holiday-that-dare-not-speak-its-name beginning to loom on the horizon. During the course of finding clothes that I might want to wash/iron/consider, I found the two lightweight tops that I bought earlier in the year and have never felt warm enough to wear. They are now sitting on the spare bed to remind me they exist, along with the top for an opened champagne bottle and the box with my sea-bands in it. (They were very useful on my last cruise!)

I was rescued from this squirrel-like activity by Di, stranded and carless for the moment, which meant a walk in Blairmore. As the dogs had already had a proper walk, we didn't need to take them - they're a bit of a liability on the narrow pavement at this point - and had what she termed a ladylike walk along the shore road to the northern boundary of the village. I took the photo as we turned to go back: the recesses of Loch Long, snaking in among the hills, hiding its various naval installations in the mist and rain that was beginning to threaten. I love the layers of hills that become mountains that become Munroes ...

I didn't stay for tea - the arrival of a further two dogs, one of which wouldn't stop barking at me, seemed too many for a basically non-doggy person. Instead I came home and wasted time doing a sudoku on the computer and catching up with my recently-flitted friend Sarah on Messenger before engulfing Himself's excellent curry. (Creatures of habit, we are - unless we're drinking champagne!)

Watched a full-length Dalgliesh story that I'd recorded some time back - I love P.D. James' books and the actor playing Adam Dalgliesh seemed ideal in this episode. And then ...

What did happen in the ten o'clock news?