I found some apples today. They were growing on a leafless tree at a project I coordinate. Larger than a cricket ball with almost translucent green skin they were hanging on with no sign of wanting to fall. Indeed, they put up some resistance to being picked. They had firm flesh with no sign of disease or deterioration. Apples. In February. A curious bonus from nature. We had them baked in the air-fryer, stuffed with dried fruit which had been soaked for a while in whisky. And there was ice cream to melt all over the caramelised tops. Simple but delicious. A wonderful, if oddly unseasonal dessert for a winter's night.
Similarly incongruous, the broccoli was covered in slugs this evening, all of which I picked off and dropped into salt water. Sorry slugs, but we are in competition and it is a mortal struggle. That is my food not yours. If I leave you to it, you will leave me none. You do not share. This phenomenon is unusual in February. As are the moths that fluttered around my head torch as I hunted the slugs. A very strange night indeed.
The frogs are happy in the pond. There must be several dozen all squirming and croaking. And there are huge amounts of frogspawn. This feels like some kind of endorsement of my pond building skills. I have built many ponds over the years. I hope they are all equally as habitable for wildlife.
The night's darkness, despite its relative mildness, seems to have an oppressive, isolating quality. The end of the garden, thirty metres or so away with its alliterative hawthorn, holly and hornbeam, seems like the edge of my world. There are houses beyond in what was a field only a few years ago. There seem never to be any people in these houses. Lights are illuminated occasionally but sometimes I feel like they are a stage-set put there only for show. I suppose given the shortage of housing, there must be occupants but I never see them. I could not tell you anything about them, or even if they actually exist.
It's a disconnected world tonight. I sit by the fire and I am in a tiny haven of warmth and light. Out of the dining room window I see nothing. The darkness is a suppressing medium of viscous Ether through which signs of humanity and its works cannot penetrate. There is no sound, even the distant motorway seems quiet. It is winter, though not cold, and this is an island of light in a vast emptiness. At least that is how it feels.
But there is this thread, thrown out into the world through the click of a mouse on the small orange button up there on the right. If I click that, these words go out into the world: A thread through the darkness. I had nothing particular to say this evening. I just wanted to say something, anything, to the world. Partly because I love how the words feel flowing out of me, from nothing, at no cost, without effort. And partly because pressing that button pierces the dark and connects me to the world.
And so I press it. Hello everyone. I hope where you are there is some light. How are you?
