A love letter to winter.
I gaily (but quietly, I hope) skipped down the stairs at 5:30am this morning. I put on my trainers, I filled up my water bottle. I fumbled around for my house key which, regrettably, is still only attached to one tiny keyring (Lego Voldemort) and slips away from my fingers much too easily, especially when I am wearing a glove.
My eyes flicked mechanically over to the CCTV screen (as it does prior to any time I leave the house, in case there’s a murderer waiting for me) and I immediately did a double take: I could only see a spectral wooosh of blurred white.
I walked back over to the window and peeled aside the netting to find that the street was covered in a thick blanket of fog. Nice, I thought. I checked myself – surely I should have recoiled? Surely I should be grimacing and clutching my chest and saying ‘what is this? I should be asleep. I can’t do it.’? But I wasn’t. There was no plea to return to the warm sanctity of my bed. There was simply alertness in my brain and elation in my heart: I was genuinely happy to be leaving the house. Whilst I have never been one to begrudge the dawn (I’ve always been an early bird, even when it’s dark), I sensed a change from the difficult mornings I had a few weeks ago as my body adjusted. I realised, in the gradual arrival of the end of the year, I had been factory reset to my default setting.
