I don’t much enjoy visiting my family at Christmas. Nothing to do with them; I’m happy to visit at other times, when we can sit outside in the lovely garden, or go out and about and gossip over scones at some seaside cafe. But at Christmas everything grinds to a halt and often, as is the case this year, the snow piles up around and hems us in to our already very isolated home, increasing the sense of vulnerability that one inevitably experiences in a house one mile up a dirt track with no neighbours within walking distance and a big dark forest on one side.
Yesterday I finally forced myself to go for a walk at 4pm, when it was already pretty dark. The moonlight reflecting off the endless carpet of white snow meant I could see where I was going, and for the first time in over a decade I wandered down a particular farm track towards the main road (I say wandered, but actually I stomped, as the snow has formed a thick, hard top crust that resists for a while before one can break through to the more pliable powder beneath.) I stood and stared out over the fields until the cold forced me to head back. On the way home I saw the shadowy figure of a tall man on the road ahead. I assumed it was my brother, out on a head-clearing walk of his own. But when I got home he was safely ensconced by the fire, and I shivered a little, wondering who the man had been, walking past our house (which is pretty much at the end of a dead end lane) without a companion or a dog. Much as I like my solitude, I’m looking forward to getting back to London, where, statistically more dangerous though I know it to be, at least I can feel the cushioning safety of numbers.
Post Christmas blues
