Refuge

After the slight respite of yesterday, The Weather is back. The texts have been pinging in all afternoon - the ferry's off, the ferry's on again, the ferry's off for the night and there's a bus to the ferry (Western Ferries) that doesn't go off ... But I'm happily not going anywhere. Not till the gale-threatened morning anyway. I've been out, I've been totally drookit, and now I'm dry and warm and the house smells of cooking. 

So far so sensible. However, I don't think anyone would have been blamed for thinking us completely nonsensical for hiking our way through the drowned forest of Benmore Gardens this midday, which is where I took this photo, in the five minutes we took out of the rain in the Andean Refuge that overlooks Glen Massan. Let me just say that I felt better for doing it.

On the way up the path, each of us lost in our own wet thoughts, I started composing intercessions for a week such as the one we face. I thought about honesty, respect, tolerance, honesty (I said that, didn't I?) and sense. I liked the words that flowed through my mind. Hours later, I thought I'd better check the rota. I am down to lead the intercessions in church tomorrow. And I've forgotten all the words I thought so fluently in the rain. I've written them, however, and I remember the burden of my thought.

And back there in the garden, a wet red squirrel bounded across our path as we walked ...