Sun, sea and ... a car rally

Today was positively hot. Even I gave up on the idea of lunch outside and took it indoors, but I had a huge washing done (10 days's worth of clothes plus all our sheets) and it wall dried perfectly even though I had to desist at one point because it actually rained a little when clouds passed over around midday. I also spent some time in the garden, mostly removing unwanted ivy and stray rose bushes (from roots that traversed our entire front garden). I tried howking some dandelion-esque plants from the grass, but gave up because the holes left behind looked worse. 

When I went out to do this particular task in the front garden, I noticed that our gatepost had a long strip of red and white plastic ribbon on it and remembered that today was the asterisk-worthy Argyll Rally and that later cars would be whizzing and grunting past our house and that we would not be able to go out of our own front gate. So in the extra collage you have an indignant photo of the tape, the view along to the little public garden beside the church at about 7pm when it was full of people watching for cars roaring up the hill, and lastly a hopeless photo of one of the earlier cars passing our house with a man in the next-door-but-one garden taking a photo over his hedge. People across the road had even set up a marquee that was slightly larger than their small front space so that its front legs had to go in the street ... It was extremely noisy for the best part of three hours. I disapprove entirely.

The afternoon was more serene. The main photo was taken while I was having a paddle at Toward. I stood knee-deep in calm water taking experimental photos of seaweed, until I was surprised by the arrival of the Rothesay ferry's wake, which wet the foot of my shorts ... But it was lovely, even if my feet are still burning from the abrasive nature of the beach once I was out of the water.

Before dinner I had a rather lovely exchange of voice messages and films from my friend in Russia - he wanted to take me round the garden of his dacha and show me the house he built himself - last time he visited us here he was just beginning on the build. It's unlikely we shall ever see each other again, but the contact serves to remind me that there's another Russia where the rhododendrons look just like ours and the tomato plants are just starting to flourish. 

What a mess we are making of our world.