The outreaching tendrils of Christmas are being felt as we pass the landmark of Guy Fawkes. Stepping out of Selfridge’s on the evening of the fifth from our rooftop dining at Le Chalet we thought we were in a parallel Guy Fawkes as police vans filled with gun wielding officers dashed past us blue lights flashing. Was this another Gun Powder Plot? No just a normal London evening.
Autumn is all too quickly disappearing . It is very swift of foot, promising so much lustrous colour and then moments later, just as the wash of colour is intensifying, hey presto the canvas of tawny tones is whipped away with a flutter of leaves in a draught of wind. There they lie, these leaves now muddied and dried out, the bane of the gardener or street sweeper. Where is their glory now? Nevertheless, the trees stand noble and stark somehow beautiful as they arabesque their outline against the sky; changed but not chastened.
The restless energy of last week has coalesced into an arc of sublime stability.
I am feeling a bit restless.
It has been two weeks since I flagged up my confusion and misery about the whys of so many disparate acts of brutality and unjust pain in the world. Not great fun to read and certainly not great fun to be experiencing but that was what had hit me … like a bolt from the blue.
Well, I have thrown away my crutches of set beliefs…and I am still standing. The thing is that I didn’t know I was using crutches, but what I did know was that something wasn’t right.
It has been a sombre week both for the world and for myself. I am sitting nursing feelings that don’t feel good.I feel as if I am stuck in a time warp and that whatever I try to do to climb out of this has no effect; I just cannot change things.
A few days ago I found myself driving around the area of Banchory, in Royal Deeside. The area , especially on such a day when the sun accentuated the greens of the trees and hills all around, is spectacularly beautiful. I could see how this area must have appealed to Victoria and Albert, being so wild and far away from all the royal protocol of the time.. Because the road had so many twists and turns, I was driving more sedately than usual otherwise I probably would not have had the experience I did.
I sat on the balcony looking up at the couple of birds swiftly fluttering their wings against the blue of the sky.
You know what it’s like; when you are wholly at ease in the warmth of sunshine, you can’t ever imagine the chill of a grey day. So it is with the personal emotional landscape.
