Lighting Morning

Skies are leaden, and fog wraps the village.  This is one of those liminal November mornings when the village is dancing on the edge and cannot decide whether it dwells in the land of late autumn or the realm of early winter.

Adjectives like dark and sunless are evocative, but there are better words about for such an interval: bosky, caliginous, cloudy, crepuscular, dark, dim, drab, dusky, gloomy, murky, nebulous, obfuscous, obscure, opaque, overcast, shadowy, somber, stygian, sunless, tenebrous, twilighted, umbral, vague, wintry.

What to do? With no light to speak of, this is not a good morning for wandering about with the camera and the peripherals that go with it, so far anyway. When Spencer and I went out a few minutes ago, a cold raw wind teased the backs of our necks, and the matter of a longer morning walk was put aside for now. My furry friend trotted back into the bedroom and curled up in my warm spot.

Inside the little blue house in the village, I pull out a basket of herbal teas given to me by my sister Caroline at the autumn equinox, then brew up a glass pot full.  As the dried flowers take in liquid and open out, the kitchen is filled with floral perfume, and home is summery all over again.  The arrangement in my cup is almost too artful to drink.

There is the latest issue of Artful Blogging to "ooh and ahh" over today, the third Brandenburg concerto on the CD player, a box of art pens in splendid Mediterranean shades to play with.  There will be currant scones this morning, and for dinner this evening something fragrant and spicy (probably curried)  that sings and dances on the tongue.  There is room at the old oak table for everyone, and there are enough cups to go around too. On days like this, one simply does whatever she can do to light things up.