Monday, December 10, 2007

Days of no light

.... are bad for the soul.

We had our first snow of the winter in the early hours of this morning. Ordinarily this provokes a childish glee in me. But today was not a day for glee. The whole day passed in a twilight gloom; a penetrating mizzle dampening clothes and spirits, reducing visibility to a few hundred yards, washing almost all the snow away by mid-morning; the sodden air suffused with coal smoke and petrol fumes, a choking miasma of an unearthly, sulphurous, sepia hue.

This was not a good day for getting anything done. Certainly not a good day to try a last-ditch lunch with Madame X (that had been my plan when I woke up - ha!). This was a day for duvets and blackout curtains and turning the bloody phone off.

2 comments:

Froog said...

And it was the anniversary of my mum's death - which is never a good day for me.

One of my worst China memories.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, dear.

Yesterday was quite awful. And I wish for you it hadn't fallen on such an emotionally packed day.

But it's a new day, the sun's out, the mountains are in view, and I am ready to go out and play. (except for that whole "work" "office" thing that is. If only I had a day off mid-week. Sigh.)