online: 8 december 2008 modified: 7 december 2008 7 december 2008 frosty afternoon
digital diary continues
...i am astonished to find that a friend whom i keep meeting on other buses, and in various parts of the heath, is today on a bus that passes my flat... he always wears a turban, this one is a beautiful dark blue...
...i get off close to the nearest pond and am surprised to find that it is frozen... the first ice i've seen this winter... seagulls are standing on its surface... solidified water, completely silent... and i'm glad to have overcome inertia and reluctance to come walking this afternoon...
...two thinly clad runners breathe loudly as they overtake me... i am walking slowly and wearing a winter coat and scarf...
...i stop in amazement to examine what appear to be new catkins (lambs tail's) on a willow tree that is bare of leaves... (on return i read in Roger Phillips' book of Trees in Britain that catkins of all varieties of Willow open in April or May)
on a seat in Sandy Heath:
...half-lit moon, directly ahead and high in the sky, visible through the bare twigs and branches of a beech tree... sunlight is already fading and i can hear a tingle in my ears... (my semi-intelligent hanheld computer interprets that as 'inky ears'!)... and i get up so as to continue walking while there is light enough to see by...
...two people are simultaneously photographing a huge cross of narrow pink lines that has appeared in the darkening sky - the crossing of two vapour trails lit by the setting sun... one of the two photographers is wearing an Islamic headscarf - so they may not be supposing this coincidence to be a Christian miracle, or message... thank goodness...
...and now, in a different part of the sky, i see two other vapour trails that are exactly parallel... shades of geometry, a reality beyond that of nature (says Immanuel Kant?)...
...my memory of geometry lessons tells me that parallel lines remain parallel when seen from any distance or at any angle (and perhaps at any scale?)
...at the bus stop a man informs me that i have just missed the 268 and i draw his attention to the evening star (perhaps a planet) and also to moon... he turns to look at each in the sunset and i decide to walk to another bus stop instead of waiting at this one...
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