Dull Days

OK, I'm not going to win any wildlife pic of the year awards, but it's mine, it was 20 minutes after the technical setting of a sun we did not see all day, and it's on max zoom, so I'll take it. This guy was moving fast, too - heading for rocks at the back of the raised beach, where (s)he may well be dug in

Of course we had sat for ages scanning the shoreline, laser-focused on bits of drifting seaweed and part-submerged rocks. This happened after we had given up and set off home - it's a universal script and a decent story for the Xmas slide-show (or the blip)

The narrative paradigm, though, requires that we were cold or bored or frustrated in our quest, and nothing could be further from the truth. Isn't it strange, the way we experience our lives. We pay a premium for sunny days, golden beaches, the highest peaks, wow factor and guidebook-certified spiritual uplift. And sometimes it works, but so often it's hollow and second-hand - not as good as the drone shots.

And on a drab day we took a last chance to escape on-line personal finance and get some air; the ground is sodden, visibility is poor, colours are subdued, life is muted. But terracotta fungi are still pushing through sphagnum, defying December; and protruding rocks, serried along the cliff top, can make their case when the eye is not drawn to distant islands; and the scale and geometrical poise of the scree behind the raised beach becomes salient when gloom obscures more grandiose peaks

And we gather these things together in our minds, and mention them to one another, and build a memory and a warmth below our hearts

And then there was an otter