Candles

Unusual Friday this week. My friend, Mr.T woke me up at 6:30 this morning to ask if I remembered today was when I was taking him to the hospital for a meeting with his doctor. I did. I actually called him last night to check with him about it but he turned his phone off. Anyway, nice to be up early and in good time. I picked him up by nine, and we first went to fetch his new id at the police station and then off to the hospital for the meeting. All was well  with  his health and we were home again by eleven.

After some admin work at the computer, and then lunch, I thought I would continue with my sorting and throwing old stuff away but a friend called, to ask if I fancied a walk in the lovely grey, misty weather. Good idea! So, for a walk we went. We passed the archeological site in The Grove, where the old village was some 1500 years ago, and found some candles surrounding the ruins of the huge chiefs-hall. A couple of days ago I had seen a young woman, a student from the folk high school, putting candles there and taking pictures, she said it was some sort of installation, but I didn't think the candles would still be there. We saw about ten of them around the ruins of the old hall-walls and was impressed by the loveliness of the idea. They were battery candles, covered in waxed, white paper, looking like white lit rocks. We both thought it would be nice to see them in the dark but left it at that.

In the evening he called me to ask if I wanted to come along on a night walk with the rest of our friends. He'd rung around and told them about the installation and they all wanted to go immediately. We arrived there in the dark around eight o'clock, bringing coffee, cakes and mulled wine. The place felt magic in the dark with all the glowing points around the walls. The student had put many lights around the whole place, many more than we could see during daylight. We decided to go through The Grove without any flash lights turned on and it's amazing how quickly your eyes get used to the dark and how much you can actually see. We've all walked there many times during the day so we more or less remembered where the path was. I noticed when I took my glasses off, my eyes adapted to light conditions much faster and after a while it was easy to see the outlines of the path stretching away in front of us. We were in the huge circle of lights drinking our drinks and eating our cakes, talking in low voices, struck by the atmosphere the paper covered candles created. I'm so happy we actually did go down there in the dark as we talked about. As my friend said, it's just a matter of telling someone else about it so you can't back off.

When I got home I watched "Arthur Christmas", by Aardman productions on Netflix. Like "Klaus", it's an animated story about Santa Claus. 
I tell you: Don't miss it.
Now, Good night.