Round the backs ...

One of my favourite poems, The Whitsun Weddings by Philip Larkin, has a line in it which comes into my mind, absurdly, any time I find myself looking down on people's back gardens - when he read it on a recording, he  stressed it thus: "we ran/Behind the backs of houses...". This is what my pal Di and I did, rather improbably, on a walk this afternoon which began as a gentle stroll (we were both wearing sandals) along the shore road but turned into a 3.6 mile hike up and down hill and - yes - behind the backs of houses. 

The largest and oddest of these is the subject of today's blip: Dunselma, on the hill above Strone Point. It was built in 1886 (taking two years to complete) for James Coates Junior, of the Coats family (the cotton and thread people) and you can read more about it here if you're interested. If you're using a desktop to read this, you may be able to make out the detail of the horizon - way down the Firth of Clyde, you can see to the left the Cumbraes and to the right the south of Arran. It's a view I don't tire of, whether from here or from the high road directly above where I was standing.

Before all this bucolic rambling, I tried to have a useful morning, or at least a purposeful one. I washed and hung out towels; I did over 100 points' worth of Duolingo Italian; I ate my lunch outside in the scant hour's peace allowed by the Neighbour from Hell in his labours to concrete a large chunk of his front garden using a noisy cement mixer situated in the back garden, ie just over the wall from mine.  Ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant ...


Inspired by a tweet I saw from someone I follow on Twitter, I downloaded a new ringtone. I don't usually bother much - for years I've settled for "old-fahioned phone" as my sound of choice - but, feeling especially irritated by Brexit and its continuing awfulness, I looked through all the available versions of Beethoven's Ode to Joy, now used as the European Anthem, and chose an exuberant orchestral and choral performance - the full experience. So now when someone phones me ... 

Well. I enjoy  it.