Turning

The kitchen light and the washing-up water condensing on the glass hid the dark garden until I switched it off to let the morning glow in, reflected off the translucence of water crystals.
After I closed the front gate I observed the world a moment. Mist hung between the houses, obscuring the view just beyond the end of the close. Each little Christmas light held a halo of vapour in the front gardens.

The car door pulled back slightly as I opened it; ice sticky. The glass looked wet, but a fingertip test revealed cold, texture; water frozen in the moment of running and dripping to a glassy model of itself.
After scraping the outside I sat, engine running, waiting until I could read the number-plate on my neighbour's car through the screen's internal fog.

After five miles I felt some warmth on my feet from the heater; the thermostat must have opened just before. The sky developed a glow where the sun was rising, faint pink, smeared yellow.

As far again and the sun was visible, but still seen through a haze. Misted fields and hedgerows backlit by this spectral star were visible as snapshots between periods of attentiveness to the road ahead; a sequence of Turneresque stills.

Rising up further beyond the river valleys and their fogs, the sun, itself risen, began to cut, to outline and to shadow.

Shortening

Three weeks since was a cold spell that extended over a few days leaving steadily less frost on the morning car as the atmosphere ran out of moisture. Nights skies were a pierced umbrella with Venus brightest and the new moon was earth-lit. Early morning light glittered off frosted surfaces, bearing little enough heat to melt them. Skies stretched between morning and late afternoon greys through all the pale blues, just darker than baby blue at noon.

Then came dampness; pooling in the Forest, misting across the plains and fogging in the shelter of tree-lined avenues. Through occasionally thin cloud, when it could be seen directly at all,  the moon rose to fullness and then set to wane again as its visiting hours were moved to morning.

Last night, Venus was up again until the wispy vapour thickened enough to hide her and our second named storm of winter played amongst the bare boughs of oak and beech, shaking harder the evergreens; fir and holly. Rain fell in sheets that accompanied the night's soundtrack of whispers and vortical moans; windows and gates shook.

The Forest's beauty is muted by the light and cloud; the palette softened and compressed to heavy shades dominated by browns.

The shortest day is upon us.