From the window. 7.30 am

Silence. Nothing moves. A thin layer of frost covers the gardens, rigid washing on the line, the sky the palest of ice-blues.

Suddenly, shockingly, a continuous cloud of steam escapes from a house where the gas boiler has been switched on.  Warmth and moisture, free and unchallenged, ever-mutating, meet a frozen world.

Someone else is awake. A diffuse yet clear and strong white light from the east.  Sun up. 

Friday

The honour crimes campaigner Jasvinder Sanghera has just been talking on Desert Island Discs about her life and her relationship with/estrangement from her family.  Extraordinary and moving, and I was caught up in her story of how fear and inflexibility can close hearts and what grace and forgiveness entail. Both, in their way, equally terrifying. She chose a couple of memorable tracks, too.  Losing My Religion by  REM and Moonshadow by Cat Stevens.  Blasts from the past.

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A chill wind still blows from the east, cutting through however many layers of clothing one happens to be wearing when venturing outside.  The birds seek shelter in the evergreen bush in the garden, only emerging for food when they must. Soup simmers in the stockpot in the kitchen and I have been comfortable in the armchair listening to the radio and admiring this week's daffodils in their vase.  After emotional storms yesterday, anxiety has retreated to low-tide level.  But it is lapping away on the horizon, too distant for me to hear this morning but I know it is there.  Ebb and flow. 

Colour and Warmth

On the third day of spring, when the sky is leaden and the slushy overnight snow is melting slowly and grudgingly and we are told by the news bulletins to take care because it will all freeze tonight and the roads will be treacherous and a wicked easterly wind straight from the Urals is forecast and power supplies may have to be rationed if this weather continues, I am hunting around for colour and warmth.

Candles help.  So do red peppers.