Light and gloom

Much of today - all of the hours of daylight, in fact - was glorious: cold, dramatically frosty, sunny, bright blue sky glorious. But all day from the moment I got up I was aware of a great cushion of fog/cloud/mist sitting across the water over Gourock and apparently sending tendrils over to explore the Holy Loch, and as the sun set I was aware of the greyness out front creeping closer - until we went out to choir practice and realised that that great cushion of fog was now sitting over us, with the addition, when we emerged from rehearsal at the back of 9pm, of the moon, hazily but obviously there. (See today's extra.)

I was actually unwilling to leave my bed this morning - these brushed sheets are wonderfully warm - but had too much to do to linger. I washed all our bedclothes - even hung some of them out while an other tumbled in a defeatist manner indoors - and wiped the line of condensation off the bottom of the windows before it could drip anywhere. Eventually we went out - Himself wanted to practise a bit in the freezing church and I thought I'd join him on foot and put in a run-through of a solo part I've to sing. This turned out more hazardous than I'd thought: I knew the car was frozen shut and took some melting, but thought there'd just be frost in the lane as there was out the front. What I'd forgotten was how wet the lane gets in the parts that aren't tarmac, and this moisture had emerged and frozen overnight and remained frozen in the bits the sun doesn't reach in winter. I started to skate the moment I left our drive-in, but made it by walking on the verges where there was grass and dead leaves. The other interesting moment came up at the top of the road near the church, where the gritting lorry had clearly decided to neglect ...

I made it, however, and the main photo is what struck me the moment I walked into the church. These windows don't have the sun on them like this during morning services, so the wonderful shafts of colour on the sides of the windows are never seen by the congregation. There was also a column of light on a pillar from another window, but I've chosen this couple of windows as being my favourite.  (They're saints Andrew and Margaret.)

We didn't last long in church - it was only 1ºC all day - but came home to write some cards and have a very early dinner. We were both warm and somnolent by the time seven o'clock came and we had to go out again - into the fog which had silently crept over the water when we had the curtains shut so we hadn't noticed. My extra photo, however, was taken after the rehearsal when we came out of the hall not long after 9pm and saw the moon, high above and made strangely mysterious in the fog. The strange grey light that seems to enclose the house reminds me so strongly of my Glasgow childhood, except that then, in the early 1950s, the fog was filthy and made a halo round the hall light while also making our nostrils like black pits and the collars of our cream school shirts had a ring of black on them. 

We sang really well tonight, perhaps buoyed by the knowledge that more than one of our listeners on Saturday had said we just went on getting better. We're on to the Christmas carols now - only one more rehearsal to go. But now it's time for bed, with the fog rubbing its back against the window panes ...*

*Reference T.S.Eliot "The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock"