ECHO 19/11/05

Fog bound – doesn’t lift all day – and with it comes the freeze - we are locked in, isolated from the rest of the world. All day the garden remains tipped with hoar, suspended. A rose bloom still vibrant red and somehow surviving the cold is preserved in its entirety like a natural exhibit turned porcelain. It is easy to become lost or disorientated when you venture outside. Waypoints and landmarks are hidden until you are almost upon them, looming grey out of the gloom, confounding distance and space. Gems of ice and cobwebs seem as if they have been placed on plant heads like silver or lace sleeves. The only birds that appear are blackbirds and crows; the first darting low across your field of view, the latter loping through the air just above the tree line, observing, prophetic. Half hidden by the overhanging trees a wheelbarrow is literally frozen in time, full of weeds and long grasses, twigs and leaves that were in the process of being cleared by the old man who used to live here before he passed away.