Days are where we live ...

After asking you all about winter duvet time, I fully meant to get mine out this morning and have a grand washing and changing and hanging out ... but there were several heavy, unpromised showers and I did none of these things. And the temperature is already down to 4ºC and dropping ... Ah well. The result was a somewhat aimless morning, although I did achieve some small-scale gardening (weeding pots, cutting down dead phlox branches, rooting out dead bits in one of the thyme pots - that sort of thing), so at least the back looks kinda tidy again. And I had phone calls from both our sons, which was nice, and the sun seemed to settle as the main ingredient of the day and life seemed slightly less morning-afterish.

It was too late by the time we went out in the afternoon by any walks facing north or east - can't bear walking in gloom and looking at brightness - so we went to Kilmun Arboretum for a change. We used to go there all the time, but in recent years we found it so beset by dogs running around off their leads with hapless owners who seemed to think it was fine for them to jump up on random strangers (us) that we gave up on it as a place for a peaceful walk. However, today it seemed more or less deserted, and we walked out along the hillside forestry track, noting the changes where there has been felling, until we came to the viewpoint overlooking the end of Glen Massan. That's where I took the photo, looking up to the solitary tree on this bare outcrop. I wondered as I took it if that was indeed a picnic bench I could see to the left of the tree - it was, and a jolly good idea too. It looks very new. I've added an extra from the way down, just because I liked the way the sun was slanting across the track.

I've been watching the serial about The Yorkshire Ripper - The Long Shadow. For all the ghastliness of today's world, the portrayal of the world of the 70s and the treatment of women that seemed the norm shock and depress me as I realise I was young then, only slightly older than the women who were being murdered. And that brings me back to my odd title - odd, that is, unless you're a Philip Larkin aficionado. Here's the poem I took it from, if you're interested.