Blue Monday Sunset

By the time we get out of the house today the light is already fading. We’re heading for West Shore  - the first visit of the year. 

G goes for his usual walk while I head out onto the sands. It’s bitterly cold; bleak but beautiful, deserted but for the occasional dog walker and the inevitable gulls who wade in the shallow waters left by the retreating tide.  

It’s not a classic sunset, the coldness of the skies refusing to warm with pinks and reds, the clouds too dark and heavy to pick up more than an angry hint of orange. Yet the standing water’s burnished with what looks like molten gold - the promise of brighter days ahead.  

Of course, the problem with photographing sunsets is you tend to stay for far too long, watching and waiting for a change in colour, one last flourish that will outshine all that comes before. And so it is I’m frozen to the core - that bone-chilling coldness that you just can’t shake. 

Back home, I genuinely feel ill - wondering whether I’m coming down with something. It’s a case of just going to bed and hoping that the warmth will ease things - and eventually it does. But I’m afraid I’m now behind with journals yet again!