rest

Our little town certainly does get bleak and ugly this time of year, so it's a good thing we've got all the fairy lights to distract us. I hate these short days, when the sun isn't properly up until after 8 am and it's back down by 4 pm. Roughly eight measly hours of sunlight a day, and it's not exactly quality sunlight, either. In fact, most days it rains, or at least it seems that way.

We still have a few hardy roses hanging on in the back garden, and whenever I happen to glance through the kitchen window, I see them and feel better. From a distance they're lovely and remind me of those glorious weeks in June and July when the garden just explodes with roses and sweet peas and lillies and jasmine and honeysuckle, and when we open up the conservatory windows and the French doors the fragrance is so strong and sweet it fills the whole house. When freshly washed white bedsheets hanging on the line reflect back that beautiful sunlight. The still, hot afternoons when the lavender is thick with honeybees, and the blackbird sits up on the uppermost peak of the rose and wisteria arch and sings out his claim to our garden.

Up close, of course, the roses look tatty and the garden smells of damp earth and leaf mould, and I need to remind myself that this season of quiet decay is inevitable and not a bad thing, it's just part of the cycle, and soon enough the first crocuses and snowdrops will be popping up and the days will be getting longer. The long nights are good for sleep.