Look away if you're tired of sunrises and boat wakes

From the back door, hurrying out...

From the target boss, looking over the house

Here comes the MOD Police boat zipping into the picture

no boat

Boat and wake

Camera 'ahead of boat' again

Boat catching up

Boat over the loch moraine

Wee tower left of boat is Rhu point light; other dots are buoys

Just clouds and refracted light

Last of the boat as it zips into the sunrise and the Clyde past Rhu Point

Inverary Lunch with a pal

I drove to Inverary today to have lunch with a pal who lives on the far side of the Mull of Kintyre. I love this drive.

On the way I pass

The head of Loch Long

Lovely trees

 There were lots of oaks still in leaf, the leaves being the same colour at this time of year as the dying bracken. Couldn't find a convenient spot to stop and photograph them though.

The wee Loch Restil

A "balloon boat" (collecting/adjusting mooring buoys) on Loch Fyne

Not a good close-up but you get the idea

And his wake as he curved away

Looking back up Loch Fyne from Inverary. That is wood smoke not rising, just sreading sideways

Here we are in The George

Then after much chatter and exchanges of gifts and a good lunch, as always at The George, I enjoyed my drive home in the fading light.

The old bridge at Inverary, single lane traffic, thus the traffic light

And again with the hillside reflection and the wood smoke still hengin' aboot

Last May that pale part of the hillside across the water was covered with bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta, or Endymion non-scriptus, as it used to be called)

Loch Restil and the winter hillsides in the failing light

Adiabatic... er no... advection fog

Well, Toad calls it adiabatic; I just call it sea fog. Why use a word with nine letters when one with three will do? ;-) Did some googling and discovered it's probably advection fog – i.e. sea fog like wot I said.

I didn't wake until daylight today, which is unusual, so I had to get the camera out before my coffee and flapjack to catch this morning's sky excitement – intense colours across my horizons before the sea fog, which wasn't going to skirt round us today, obliterated the loch.

The fog starts to roll up the loch; I enjoyed the wee pink reflection first though.

East

South-east

NE

NNE

North

And the eider ducks had a lot to say about this. At least, they kept up their contact noises all the while. Where are you? I can't see you. I'm over here. Where. Right beside you.
It all sounds like O-ooo, so I did the translation for you.

I was awake for a few minutes at about four o'clock this morning and heard tawny owls very close too.

Later same day:

Camera on funny setting but I quite like the effect (in small doses)

The boat is an MOD Police boat

I liked the wake on the water. Small things :-)

Pre-sunrise pyjama walk

I should explain that as well as the PJs, I'm wearing a thick dressing-gown, a toscana sheepskin gilet, a fleece headband with a shetland wool hat on top of that, and cashmere fingerless mitts when I do these pre-sunrise PJ walks. And on my feet thick wool hiking socks and neoprene-lined Muck boots.

And I've had some coffee and flapjack (recipe anon) already.

This morning was a typical soft west of Scotland morning, not as chilly as yesterday when the ground frost never melted until after dark because, as you will see, the cloud cover increased overnight. I walk uphill along the south-east side of the garden and down again.

This view, looking down on the loch, is from about half way up the garden that is above the house (literally! at the top of the garden we can see over the top of the house)

One of my baby oak trees, self-seeded but nibbled in its infancy by roe deer, thus the chicken wire

The result of my sticking a pruned flowering currant twig in the ground seven years ago; still in leaf in November

Part of the old, somewhat collapsed, flowering current and some lichen-covered, collapsing bird cherry

A bit higher up the garden and a bit more light

Down nearer the house again. This is to show how our roe deer visitors bite all the ends off the monbretia leaves

Dying bracken – love the colours – just over the fence in the field

The view east above that bracken

And just before walking in the back door, the old ship's companionway steps up from the terrace to the 'lawn', some heather, and so winter leaves of garden bistort (I think that's what it is anyhow; keep forgetting)

While I stood still to take photographs I could hear birds waking up. A few flew overhead from the trees – down to the shore gardens, perhaps – and I particularly enjoyed the sound of splashing eider ducks as they ran across the water to join some friends.