A Quiet Day

A car window shot of two distinct trees on the way up the hill - blurred and grainy but I like the wintry mood; stately, indifferent, cold. A sense today of nature happening without us; the season's days against our countdown to Christmas/New Year.

Drove through the shoot on the way up to Wapley Hill this morning; beaters in old army fatigues and wellies hitting sticks together to drive the birds towards the guns, a clatter of birds escaping into the trees. A cold morning on the hill, the mud either cold and wet or still frozen. Beech leaves wet and brown on the ground, but those still on the trees were a beaten pale bronze/coppery colour in the thin sunshine. Beech bark like elephant hide, close up, muscular and rippling as I have noticed before.

And an afternoon making and baking; made some fresh mincemeat with leftover fruit and old suet, and refreshed two jars of vintage mincemeat I think I made two years ago; opened one and the sharp smell of brandy and preserved fruit oozed out into the cold kitchen. Then we made some pastry and the season's first batch of mince pies.

A short walk to see the frozen water in the toll road, now refrozen, the ground icy with a thick sheen of fragile ice, the water/ground/water trapped in hopeless layers. More water out on the Moor, glinting in the last of the light, old flood waters perhaps. A cold time, the grass stayed frozen all day, and the promise of another cold night.

Reflections, trees trapped in blurred ice; out of focus, indistinct, blue.