Midsummer celebration

Last night it never became dark. The photo above was taken at 1.45am, looking north. The last of the sunset was segueing into the first light of dawning and two hours later it was daylight (I was too sleepy to hang out of the window again to take another photo). Tonight it will be dark, as the clouds have sailed in again, but tonight I'm off to celebrate another kind of light. Thirty years ago my pal Kenny was ordained deacon, and we're off to join in the High Mass at St Augustine's, Dumbarton. Should be a joyous occasion - who cares if it rains!

A midsummer night's ....

It is 9.45 pm. The sky is still bright, blue overhead but grey and rainy-looking over Gourock. Our garden is filled with the scent of Philadelphus and the stink of next-door's cheminea - or whatever you call these pot-bellied stove efforts with which modern aspirationals attempt to bring indoors outdoors (or is it the other way round?) In the town below, the yoof yell occasionally. This is midsummer in Dunoon.

Actually I fear that the young next doors are having an "empty", and that they lack the necessary fire-raising skills to produce heat without smoke. I don't actually think they need heat, as the evening is almost oppressively warm. I don't care for this fashion of taming one's garden and then sitting resolutely in it in all but a downpour. In these parts you need to burn so many anti-midge devices that the garden smells like a High Mass in full swing.

Be that as it may, I'm going to compose myself for sleep before midnight, as I have to be up betimes (wonderful expression). Yoof, the fires of hell, incense ... I must ignore them all. To sleep, perchance to dream ....