Winter Feast

In Britain we don't have a climate, we have weather, or as the saying goes - if you don't like the weather , just wait 5 minutes.... This morning, sitting waiting in my usual spot, in my usual car park, at my usual time the car was rocking like a boat in a squall and the rain was hammering on the roof like an army of riveters with a productivity bonus. Not having any reason to get out of the car all this lulled me into a form of happiness mixing nostalgia, melancholy, and ..."emphasised smugness" for lack of a better term. As always the sound of the rain even triggered strong olfactory memories - old wet canvas from camping in a storm by Loch Lomond, wet grass and foliage from many temporary shelters under the nearest tree...and (as always) the particular time dry and snug under the only trees on Orkney with Christine. The darkness and streaming windscreen even made the stark, all too familiar surroundings abstract, distorted and mysterious. Some movement in the branches above me drew my eye to a pigeon working its way deep into the web of branches, eyes closed, body hunched down against the blast of the wind and the weight of the downpour. It was surrounded by juicy, red berries - a sweet feast in this bleak winter but it was so battered by the weather that it ignored them and concentrated on hanging on to the swinging branch and enduring the cold, wet assault. I developed quite a fellow feeling for this poor embattled creature, powerless to influence it's miseries, able only to endure.

Within 10 minutes the rain petered out, the wind dropped (a little) and the sky (grey and sullen) cleared to blue and bright. Still wet but undaunted my little friend came back to life and from grim despair was transformed to a bouncing, pecking, swallowing glutton, stuffing its crop with the red harvest.