Midnight of the year

I was at the nature reserve this afternoon, the shortest day of the year. I thought there was bound to be some sort of atmospheric, climatic or natural spectacle to mark this significant day - the winter solstice. However, it stayed dull and grey and ordinary and undemonstrative, in a sort of passive-agressive defiance. I gave up on getting an interesting photograph. Then, on my way home, I stopped where a little hump-backed bridge goes over the Aylesbury arm of the Grand Union Canal. It was only 4.15 but the sky had suddenly melted into richly-coloured layers, more fitting of the great natural and cosmic transition that was happening. Happy New Earth Year.