Another short, miserable winter day. I dread them
My bones are old and cold and I layer myself with cardigan upon jumper upon t-shirt and hide. I wear two pairs of socks and still find the floors cold. With the weather almost spring-mild, this does not augur well.
The worst of it is the diminishing of my life for four months till April. The fish in the pond have gone down; they are hibernating. The birds are around just to feed and then they disappear. My cats ask me to open the door for them to go out (disdaining their cat flaps. After all, we are all their servants to do their bidding.) and then change their minds. They stand at the door weighing the weather up while I freeze. I myself will look out longingly at my garden from the window. There is still a dash of colour here and there in the garden, mostly wild roses, which disregard the rules of December behaviour.
I wake up at three in the morning and my hands are stiff. I do yoga exercises in bed and search for my sausage bean-bags, which keep me warm. But my cat, Pepper, gets there first and will refuse to budge. She likes sleeping on the warm sausage too.
Short days, I think, remind me of the human life. Flitting by like a DVD in fast forward. I wake up late after my insomniac night and sleep late. When I come down, my daughter is well into her work and the squirrels are waiting for bird-feed, the naughty urchins of the garden. There is no grace in the day, no slow passage of time. It rapidly scurries back into dusk and I wonder where the day went. Or the week, or the month -- or the life.
I am reminded of the words of the venerable Bede. Human life, like a bird's, which flies into a lighted room briefly and then goes out into the dark again.
Now, I must find a decent book to cheer me up. A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW, again, I think.
My bones are old and cold and I layer myself with cardigan upon jumper upon t-shirt and hide. I wear two pairs of socks and still find the floors cold. With the weather almost spring-mild, this does not augur well.
The worst of it is the diminishing of my life for four months till April. The fish in the pond have gone down; they are hibernating. The birds are around just to feed and then they disappear. My cats ask me to open the door for them to go out (disdaining their cat flaps. After all, we are all their servants to do their bidding.) and then change their minds. They stand at the door weighing the weather up while I freeze. I myself will look out longingly at my garden from the window. There is still a dash of colour here and there in the garden, mostly wild roses, which disregard the rules of December behaviour.
I wake up at three in the morning and my hands are stiff. I do yoga exercises in bed and search for my sausage bean-bags, which keep me warm. But my cat, Pepper, gets there first and will refuse to budge. She likes sleeping on the warm sausage too.
Short days, I think, remind me of the human life. Flitting by like a DVD in fast forward. I wake up late after my insomniac night and sleep late. When I come down, my daughter is well into her work and the squirrels are waiting for bird-feed, the naughty urchins of the garden. There is no grace in the day, no slow passage of time. It rapidly scurries back into dusk and I wonder where the day went. Or the week, or the month -- or the life.
I am reminded of the words of the venerable Bede. Human life, like a bird's, which flies into a lighted room briefly and then goes out into the dark again.
Now, I must find a decent book to cheer me up. A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW, again, I think.
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