Cold? What is cold?

I don't really look out of the window very much. In college, the windows have the blinds down most of the time, for reasons I am oblivious to, apart from Film Studies class when we watch films. Most of the time in the mornings I'm not awake enough to care what's happening outside and by the time I get home in the evenings it's too dark to see. Sometimes when I sit in my lovely red computer chair I can see the frost on the tops of the houses opposite. And today I sit here and see frost on the top of the tree that grows at the end of our garden. And it is still. Really still. No wind at all. And no birds chirping, which was a godsend. It's not that I dislike birds - birds are beautiful creatures, I adore looking at birds! - but wow, they are noisy.


So I manage to pull myself up and out of my chair to actually look down into my garden and I see frost and a touch of fog. I screaming internally. I'd been waiting months for the frost to come back. I'm a winter girl, this was perfect.

I throw a jumper and coat and scarf and gloves and boots over my bedclothes (I'm an adult now, I don't say pyjamas) and grab my Canon. I rush down to the front room and see out the window my neighbours de-icing their car. I'm too awkward to speak to them so I go into the back garden instead.

And the first thing I see and love - frozen cobwebs! I can't recall them in my mind from last winter or any winters before, but I am known for not paying enough attention when it matters. I live in the here and now. And one lone apple on our apple trees that stand by the fence, the old men of our backyard, bent over and stiff and seem to be dying, even though they produce more and more apples every year. I'm also intrigued by the few flowers that are crystallised in the ice that covers them.

Eventually I venture back inside and peek out the front. It's deserted, good. This time I grab my bag with my keys and adventure out. More frozen cobwebs, more frosted plants. And I walk up the road, all the way to the postbox that's covered in the cobwebs. There's a few people out - a man in a big yellow coat stands on the other side of the road to me but I can't see very well as I foolishly came out with my glasses. Another man appears from a side street with an unusually quiet suitcase dragging behind him and he walks to the bus stop. I pity him, standing out here in what my ipod describes as mine three degrees. I think it's lying, I'm not cold, just a little numb and that's how I like it. And I know the bus won't come for at least another half an hour, because that is the bus my nan has promised to come to visit me in.

I'm outside for 15 minutes and I've listened to a Sóley track, a Sigur Rós piece and even got onto some Björk. My ipod is playing me the sounds of Iceland this morning. Not a bad idea, looking at all this white. I make my way home, concious of the time and anxious to edit before I'm dragged away from my computer by my nan and the demands of my stomach that will want me to eat eventually. But I am happy because this morning is beautiful and peaceful and the panic I felt last night has diminished for now. And the most wonderful thing is that the sun in not shining, the clouds have consumed it completely.