So you haven’t been able to buy presents , quite on the industrial scale of previous years, or you might have missed an extra day or two at work, or the car you were driving is now abandoned on some minor road somewhere between Bath and Oxford, or your flight to some place in the sun has been grounded, and you’ve slept your last night , not in a manger, but on the hard floor of a crowded terminal.
Well I can’t remember the last time I woke, as I did today without the sound of a low-flying 747 breaking over my rooftop, or the early cacophony of hooting from those driving towards the City or the shattering echoes of metal on metal and the machine gun expletives from the builders.
Not since childhood have I walked a park so bereft of workers, the muffled silence of London broken only by the soft crackle of the snow, breaking beneath my feet, one’s whole surrounding a fairytale scene of copper light and trees, black dancing shadows against the pure white. The park was empty but for one or two arctic adventurers like myself, making their way through the playing fields filled with snowmen and boulders, the remnants of yesterday’s games during which everyone had become children for a while.
There was an almost full moon last night and a bright star continued to shine until the dawn broke. This morning it seemed time and nature had been preserved- the lake frozen, trees shrouded in iced webs, yesterday’s tracks clearly marked. Even our nearest council tower block seemed blessed. Encircled by white, it reflected the morning sun, like a block of gold, left by Kings.
