chemin bloqué

.....maybe when a writer like M R James peoples his woods with ghosts and demons, one of the reasons they scare us is because they operate as symbols for this unnatural, somehow unlikely emptiness; an emptiness we can populate all too readily with our own misgivings. Fear need not arise solely from external stimuli; in the absence of a direct object, we can always draw upon ourselves, our own experiences and misgivings. The fear is within us, waiting to be vested in something or other.

Steve Duffy: Ghosts and Scholars 1999

It did feel a bit unexpected and scary - all down, I suppose, to the violence of last week's storm....