Just when it seems that one cannot tolerate another dull February day, along comes a poignantly brief interval of brilliant blue skies, high wispy clouds and fluffy mounded snowdrifts. The village, which only a day or so ago was a greyscale study executed in deep liminal twilight, is blown glass from here to there, its myriad outdoor elements tinkling like a thousand and one madcap cymbals, each keeping its own rhythm and time.
There is ice everywhere: glossing roofs, vehicles and trees, coating the cobblestones on the front walk, dangling from the eaves of the house in sculptural shapes and dazzling the eyes whenever the sun alights on them. Slippery stuff, and one has to watch her step...
There are other things one ought to be doing, but she stands freezing on the deck with a very long lens on her camera and snaps pictures of the trees up the hill dancing in the north wind. Then off comes the telephoto lens, and on goes a 100mm macro - for some reason the windbells below the rafters and their attendant sparkling icicles engage her attention. In February after the light is everything, and how that light captures one heart when it graces her with its presence in early morning.
The day is cold, the north wind is approaching gale force and walking is treacherous, but the word for days like this one just has to be “joy”.