Tag: Dreich

Winter to Summer Solstice (2)

Day 2 sunset 15.42pm

What did you do with your extra minute of light today? Where you aware of it? Did you pause in that extra moment of light to contemplate the coming seasons? after all, spring is only a few months away.

I set an alarm on my phone for 15.40pm today, this gave me a minute to put aside what I was doing in order to pause at precisely 15.41pm for a whole minute, and although it has been a heavy dreich day, I stepped outside.

The top of Meall nan tarmachan visible through the clouds.

I am lucky to have a car port at my back door, meaning I don’t get soaked when its raining.

But the dampness still sneaks under the car port.

I stood for a moment but was soon drawn into the back garden. The rain hitting the car port roof behind me sounded like popping candy when it dances on your tongue. I was surprised at the abundance of bird song coming from the trees at the bottom of the garden, but then there is so much foliage for them to muster in, and the birds are fed well by my neighbour. My garden looks sad though, limp, brown and sleepy, I look forward to new shoots bursting through the earth, but first there will be snow.

My tired garden

As I turned to head back indoors, I passed the garden table, all wet, shiny and tinted with sky, and I felt a warmth, this table was our wedding sign and altered by a kind neighbour into a piece of furniture we will use for many years.

Not only did it bring fond memories of a wonderful day, but optimism of a first anniversary when the light will have fully arrived, the trees will be full once more and everything a little softer.

As I took my last deep breath of the cold damp air, I felt privileged to experience the moment in full presence before heading indoors to the warmth, to my wife and to a warm cup of lemon and ginger tea.

Why not set a reminder to experience a minute of sunset yourself.

Adding colour to an otherwise drab day

It has been another dreich and drab day here in Killin, Scotland and, a cold one too. It’s a lack of colour day, a blanket day, a cannae find the motivation to even write day. So what do you do when the washed out world is painting your soul grey? You paint it back to life. This is how I filled my evening. How about you?

Web

Taken on a dreich morning in Stirling

Have you ever stepped outside into a cold morning to find that your garden has been spun into a new world of silver threads and pearl droplets? Think about how hard those tiny spiders have worked to create this masterpiece. Look at the photograph above and imagine only one strand of the web. Now imagine that single strand is the first draft of your novel, short story, poem or whichever creative masterpiece you have just finished writing. Now it’s time to build your web. Editing is the job of going around and around, reworking, re-writing, correcting, enhancing, adding and subtracting, developing and enriching. It’s like building a spider’s world. 

%d bloggers like this: