Grey skies in London. Grey skies in Brighton. Grey grey skies.
On the phone this morning my friend is sad. On the stairwell this afternoon my neighbour is sad. As I wade through the mountains of admin for most of the day I am sad too.
We are ahead of ourselves. This is how it should feel in the world as time pulls us screaming into October. It’s a month too early. A month too cold. A month too grey. We haven’t had that joyful light of summer yet, and I should know. I was outdoors wearing a badger hat for that one sharp week of hard heat. That can’t be our summer allotment. I’m not ready for winter yet. I’ve barely started on my tan.
I’m back by the sea, with Lou cocooned in cotton beside me. Mao is prowling the flat, occasionally stopping for cuddles. It’s good to be here again. I managed to do most of the admin that I went to London for, while the party boats went past my flat. Maybe this crushing grey is why they seemed to be doing such a roaring trade. It’s time for us to start to huddling together again and making noise and lighting fires to ward off the darkness and the creeping fingers of winter. Too sodding early, if you ask me. I need more summer.
We are having a mini break now the bank holiday is over. We both stayed busy this weekend so we can sod off into the middle of nowhere tomorrow and light fires while everybody else tries to go back to work. I might have preferred it had it been a little bit less grey. But it’s still something to look forward to. Just two nights away and Mao is going to have a lovely friendly sitter while we just … get out of the rut for a second and recharge.
Driving down south just now, the whole sense of impending winter was augmented by the fact that they were playing Wagner on Radio 3. Tristan and Isolde again. This time it’s at the proms. Soaring long epic and sad. As the sea hove into view I had King Mark’s lament, live from The Albert Hall. I’ve only just met that opera properly after watching the whole thing knackered at Glyndebourne on another grey day just after Willows ended. It’s never gonna cheer anybody up, but it seemed appropriate to my mood and to the weather. Frankly if they’d been playing Mozart I’d have switched the radio off in disgust and just driven the rest of the way in angry silence, occasionally shouting a swear word at the window of the car. Seasonal Affective Tourettes. It helps get it out.
Stop the winter! We need a petition on Change.org. It’s a month too early. Bring back T-shirt weather and hats. I’m not ready to wrap up cosy yet. Not after the isolated year we’ve all had…
AlBarclay 