Suddenly ...

It feels like winter. I almost had "It is winter" as a title, in honour of a line in Michael Tippet's A Child of our Time - “The world turns on its dark side — it is winter"  - the very first piece I sang when I joined the Choral Society at Glasgow University in my second year. It seems appropriate, the way the world is right now, even without considering the sudden chill that descended on today and had me scuttling round looking for a fleece jersey to put on for my morning shopping.

Once I'd recovered from that and had my breakfast, I seemed to do very little else of any use all day. I discussed the words of hymns with Himself - so many hymns use language and imagery that I cannot bear to sing during the awful tragedy of the Middle East - and read The Scotsman on my computer and then it was time for lunch. 

Our car was at the garage having the windscreen washer mechanism fixed (did we try it out? I can't remember) but a phone call mid-afternoon informed us that it was ready, so we marched down to the garage and retrieved it, thus releasing ourselves from the depressing prospect of walking around the draughty streets of the town. Instead we drove out to the Puck's Glen car park and walked along the old road and back, noticing how autumn has taken over the colour palette and brought curled, brown leaves actually pattering down in the chilly air. 

The photo shows Himself observing a massive gunnera growing on the verge next to a mysterious warehouse that sprang up a few years ago - I don't recall the plants being there before, but they're spreading now. Soon they will begin to collapse and rot, and that whole bit of road will be full of their smell - it's very pungent. It's a soothing sort of walk, especially if as today there are no free-running dogs leaving their owners far behind them ...

I noticed that I was feeling cold downstairs after the heating had gone off (it came on twice today, in the morning and at 5pm) - is this what happens as you get old? What Larkin referred to as incompetent cold in his poem The Old Fools? I remember when it first came out - I'm clearly getting too old as well. Funny how the brain refuses to admit it ...