The woods are lovely

Outside the snow is falling and the land is dark. I have had a busy day at work and am in a dreamy mood: the kind of mood that comes from the weather - tonight is the kind of night I remember from within myself: it is the kind of night that is made for walking across fields, through woods, beside rivers, canals for just being out, lost in the myriad millions of snow flakes falling falling falling.

I have done such nights many many times in my life and I hope one day soon I will take my daughter Frances out on such a night and introduce her to the beauty of a dark night, a snowy sky, a walk without a destination, the poetry of just being a traveller as a blot on an otherwise quiet world. As a teenager at school I would regularly escape into the snowy nights to wander, into the clear crisp winter nights to wander and see the constellations, into the summer nights to wander yet none of them moved me like the snowy nights when the sky seemed full of wonder falling falling falling. The wind, the dark, the snow, the sound of my feet crunching through fresh snow, the fields luminous and yet indistinct, the woods clear and yet closed and mysterious and the precious moments where the clocks disappeared from the world and the only thing that mattered was how long you wanted to go.



The kitchen will be closing for Christmas and I would like to wish all readers a happy Christmas. I will be back in the new year. I know the year ahead has many many exciting adventures planned. I just hope I will be able to put them all here.