Espresso, Icicles, Words Gone Walkabout

I awaken before sunrise and brew a lovely espresso in the De'Longhi, then stumble into the study to write a blog post, trying not to drop the dear little beaker clutched in my arthritic paws. The crema on this morning's effort is to die for, and so is the sumptuous fragrance. Pleasing curls of steam rise from the surface. Yum.

One or two recent photos are OK, but I can't for the life of me figure out what to say about them. The words simply will not come. For someone who spends so much time with her nose in a book or thinking about the provenance of words, their reluctance to show up and pirouette into place is a distressing state of affairs. 

Perhaps the biting cold has something to do with it. When Beau and I ventured out into the sleeping garden this morning, dark clouds obscured the sky, and the thermometer out on the deck registered a temperature way below zero.  It is sunny now, and the skies overhead are brilliantly blue, but oh, the antarctic contours of the day...

During the recent cold snap, older houses in the village have grown some fabulous icicles. When sunlight shines through them, they shimmer and dazzle, and they seem to hold the whole universe within their glossiness. One can almost forget what a gelid and windy undertaking it is, the restless enterprise of trying to capture them with a camera. The best place to take photos of icicles is often right underneath them, and doing such a thing is reckless, but sometimes I do it anyway. Beau (of course) sits several feet away and is safe from falling ice.