Early not rising

From under covers the day looked gloomy; sounding still. A few early gates and cars, the imperative shouts of birds - too soon still to sing their love ballads.

The needy devices called out their morning pleas: junk emails, bank balances arriving, a single tuneful appointment.

Cinematic beams and fine droplets

Fine rain, settled gently in the earlier puddles, greeted me on the way home. Splashing as high as the screen. Mud run off the fields and fine aggregate deposited by ad-hoc steams, tracked by cars, stuck to the tarmac. Little used T-junctions worked the differential as tyres threw up this damp deposit, seeking the metalled surface beneath.

The sky was pale grey, bruised. Wind whispered and the headlights showed edges, hedges, posts and white lines. Approaching eyes glared through the mist and the beam helped a little before being soaked up and scattered by the damp air.

Reflectors signposted property boundaries, parked vehicles or day-glow clothing on dog walkers and cyclists; picking them out like the victims of thermonuclear accident or, with glowing highlights, like Tron people.

The edge of troubled weather

Yesterday evening was more calm and drier than most weather of late. Across the plain, a disused airfield, the sky was colourful. Lit and textured like a child's crepe paper stained glass christmas decoration. Yellow glowed through textured blues and greys, a celestial candle in the West that sank slowly towards a wooded horizon as I approached.

As storm "Gertrude" dances in the North of the kingdom we are spared her gratuitous violence, merely swooshed and swished by her skirts as she whirls up there. The trees in the garden shook this morning; some in apparent  mirth, some in anger and the birds kept to cover.

Trouble with waking

Fake dawn, moon lit, seeped through the curtains at five. The quiet gave it away and I checked the time, tried to remember how to sleep and lay there past the rattle of the first commuter train. Some time slumber crept back, relaxing the muscles' unaccustomed aches from Wednesday night badminton, until I woke. The arm stretching out for the alarm stabbed; sore shoulder, a touch of tennis elbow.

Floods mostly dissipated had left dampness which had frozen on the street and cars. Stabbed again as I scraped to the hum of warming engine and the blower trying to clear the glass. We joined streams of warming cars queuing for no reason but each other; flowing in and out of towns beneath the broadening pale blue.

The trouble with sleep

Too much chicken, too late, after a stressful day at work. My mind and guts wrestled the night away to the accompaniment of rain falling on stuff and wet stuff blowing about the garden, rattling windows, trying the doors and gates and driving trees to wild frenzy.

The village had grown about 20 acres of lake by morning and the journey to work required fording. I found a new waterfall.

Wet, mild air gives way to the 15 billion light-year stare

On Monday the edge of the new moon sank in the evening sky like the golden torc of a dead Viking, diving in the sea; like a spark of red-hot iron hammer-struck from a wrought edge; like the retinal burn of a whirled brand in the night. Afterwards the pure starlight condensed to crystal ice on the glass and steel structures. New quilts' mettles tested; no mourning for their geese.

Mild Cobweb Removal

With winds forecast a little slacker than of late, we thought to test the new winches and blow out the slightly stuffy feeling of Christmas yesterday. Seven or eight weeks since we last hauled sail and we felt rusty, resorting to check-lists and talking ourselves through the regular procedures of preparation. All smooth except setting out for a minute without cockpit instruments.

We motored up to the wave barrier and wound a few turns of genoa sheet on a shiny new port winch before the Southerly leg of the river set the genoa to flapping, when we furled again, not thinking to raise the main until we turned East. Head to wind briefly and then blown off again with a full main, a little constricted by the tight jacks. Waves from the South-West looked about force 4, foamy crests that rose and fell, but these steadily gave way to a swell and crests tumbling; a little fresher than was expected.

Reminded that we were testing winches I hauled out the genoa on the port side again, but on the beam reach we had set to take us slightly up-tide this just put the port gunwale in the water. We looked at the conditions, we considered the possibility that the forecast was even less accurate than it seemed and decided that once across the Solent and back on the main would be enough. Our roughly repaired ensign was not taking the breeze well and had to be stowed. On the port tack home the tide was evident, drawing us West as we tried to line up the river-mouth in the lightening conditions. We swapped from main to genoa for a stately trip up the river, making 5 knots on part of the small sail.

Furled and back on engine for the harbour we danced with the ferry which was avoiding a yacht coming down with the flow. We moored facing the opposite way to normal at the second attempt. Mooring facing up river leaves the stern open to the prevailing winds and these have been rather wet recently. We hope for drier bilges.

Quite a blow; quite a test after not sailing for a couple of months. Here we are between Christmas and the New Year wearing the gear we usually wear in the summer, perfectly warm and comfortable. I didn't even put my boots on, wearing light deck shoes without socks.