horses of courses

The lawn looked remarkably flat this morning, after its trim yesterday evening. Blackbirds and starlings probed the mat for invertebrates and my back was not ever so bad, so happiness all round. A brief measure of panic when it was discovered that youngest was still in bed with three minutes to the bus, but mostly calm. I just wrote in the answer for a Guardian "tough" sudoku wondering as I often do how these puzzles are ranked and how often they print the ratings on the wrong one.

Slightly keen to have time for meeting preparation I considered for two seconds the sensible route to work, but how often is the weather so mellow and the light so luminous in the morning? So to the back roads. I fiddled with the radio as I left the village and, someone out there in FM land was playing Jimmy Somerville; swept back to the part of the 80's in which hope sprang eternal and the world was an exciting place. I knew I'd made the right choice.

Unfortunately many (well too  many, but actually rather few) people had made the same calculation and so a certain amount of slowing and passing or diving into the rough was required to negotiate the usual long route to work. The sky filled the gap between horizons with blue only slightly punctuated by fluffy cloudlets. Ponies and donkeys dozed on the roads, letting in the day's heat before moving off to browse. The car said 18.5 degrees centigrade.

By the time I reached work the clouds had disolved, leaving only mares tails scratched into the heavens. Now however the clouds have slabbed and collected and are beginning to frown a little. Small islands of blue remain, but here at ground level the forecast is cooler with possible heavy showers. The radar shows rain from the West disolving before it reaches us.

Time I think for a brief walk, not too far from shelter and I can watch out  for the red kite I pretended to not watch from the meeting. Distant gulls circle like motes in the clear light of a cloud gap, lit despite their darkening backdrop; there is a stillness.