Blue skies and sonshine...

Sorry - that dire title just came, irresistibly ... blame it on a sort of euphoric exhaustion. What a lovely day this was - even warmer, I think, than the day I went swimming over a week  ago, with the fog bank that hung over Gourock when I was contemplating getting up never quite making it over the Firth to Dunoon, though it got halfway before melting away. 

We had a visit today from #1 son - fortuitously, as it turned out, having been arranged in the immediate aftermath of our miserable return home. He rocked up in his rather marvellous Mazda, roof down (childishly, I love watching it going back over), in time for coffee in the garden, where we sat catching up till it seemed time for something to eat. We'd decided that the Redwood Cafe in Benmore Gardens would do just fine, and I got a lift out in the Mazda, the wind in my hair  but not, to my surprise, in my face - apparently they spent lots of engineering design time on ensuring this. It was insane fun rocking along within the speed limit but feeling much faster so close to the road and feeling it under the wheels... 

The collage shows me in another dilemma about what photo to use - it's just a snapshot of a lovely afternoon to the Andean chapel at the top of the gardens. I was still feeling the effects of the last fortnight and of the still-infected whatever-it-is beside my eye, so the hill nearly killed me, but there I am sitting triumphantly in the refuge in a T-shirt I have never felt warm enough to wear all summer. The photo in the bottom left is of one of the three willow-woven giant figures, recently completed by local artist Kathy Bruce, that now stand in the corner of the formal garden. I loved the way the sun shone through the heart of this figure ... and I loved the beginnings of the autumn colours against the vivid blue sky. We talked about the world and about education now, and we saw a red squirrel, much scarcer this year than before. I drove our car home to allow Himself a shot in the sports car, and we had time for cool drinks in the garden before Neil left. He has the easier deal coming and going - no facing into the sun when you go from West to East as the sun sets. (Himself has to sit like a meerkat if we drive home at teatime!)

After darkness fell, I was out in the garden trying for a decent shot of the clear moon over the firth. I've added one as an extra - it's rather darker than reality, but it's the least fuzzy moon I've so far been able to capture with my phone. 

I've just slept downstairs for an hour. Here's to some more zzz in a wee while ...