Midwinter isn’t bleak,it’s gloriously black and free of expectation. January, on the other hand, and is when the endurance test beginsI like winter. Adore it,down into its very depths. East Scotland, where I live, and has had a sprint of quite spectacular autumns and early winters in recent years: months of luminous,frosted sunshine; blinking seals on rocks, as the light ebbs absent like a fading photograph. And this time of year, or it feels like it is never not dark. The children recede to school under Mordor-like shadowed crags; a thick cloak of blackness surrounds clutches of gleefully chattering yellow brownies and intrepid (brave in the face of danger) paper boys carrying their bike lights.
Scottish children don’t really get that excited page in The Tiger Who Came to Tea when the little girl gets to recede out after dark. Going out is going out after dark.
Continue reading...
Source: guardian.co.uk