CITY LIGHTS

- OH SO COMFORTING -

During my university years, I would stay at my Grandparent's house in the winter time, to ensure I could get to class on a snowy day. Living in the countryside meant winter was a time of silence and blinding whiteness, and the roads were deathly icy. So, instead, I lived in a cream coloured room above the hustle of the city, with old wallpapers and a heavy blue duvet blanket on the bed.

Those times were quite lovely, and I remember peering out the window at night - the heat of the room escaping from the crack in the curtains, my cold cheeks and nose pressed against the glass. In that frame of hot breath on cold glass, I could see all the lights of the city.

Our city lights have always given me comfort. To me, they mean:

- The return of a long car journey up North, after sleeping in the back of our family car. 

- The view from the lookout, as we watched dusk creep over the houses.

- And, of course, they meant warm evenings spent at my grandparent's house, eating Grandma's bean soup and watching David Attenborough documentaries. 

I CHERISH THE WINTER

- THE WONDERS OF WINTER -

Is there not something particularly special about having to stay inside on a cold and blustery day - knowing you absolutely must make a hot chocolate, tend the fire, and spend three hours reading a book?

There is so much that is special about winter. Where to start...

Well firstly, making a fire is special in itself - as it involves scrunching up the newspaper, getting ink on your hands, and staring into the burning embers, letting them erase all your thoughts until your mind is enveloped by that black light and you forget about the room you are in. 

Waking up to a carpet of snow is a magical feeling. 
Almost as if the whole world was dusted with icing sugar in the wee hours of the night.

The snow makes all colours look that much brighter.

Gaudy houses become part of Santa's Village.

Occasionally, our kingdom is visited by the White Witch from the wardrobe, and all the land is enveloped in a frost.

It is also very amusing when my breath comes out in a puff of clouds. That makes me laugh.

Besides, the adventures of Winter are always some of the best.

And when I return home, my cheeks are all hot and flushed from running through in the cold headwinds for so long. You can't beat that feeling of exhilaration. 

NATURE OUT OF PLACE

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Sometimes as I am walking, I like to pick a flower, or an odd looking rock, and pass it between my fingers or from hand to hand. 

Then I place the flower or rock in a place it would never think to be - because hydrangeas should not grow in thorny hedges, for propriety's sake; and rough quartz stones do not belong on the top of a fence post (for how should they get up so high in the first place?). 

After I have left it there, I think of the person who will come across it, and who will know that somebody intentionally placed it there. Maybe then they will smile.