Snow

It's the quiet that alerts you, as you wake in the middle of the night. On everyday nights the road outside is never completely silent, no matter what time you wake. But there is an eerie hush as you lie, listening to the muffled air as no cars pass.

The sliver of light on the ceiling is more luminous, paler, hinting at the sudden change. Sliding out of warm sheets, feet feel around on the chilly carpet for slippers. Even the cold has a muffled edge this night.

The dining room window uncurtained reveals a glowing snow scene in the garden. The tiled floor radiates ice up through the soles of your feet, racing through the veins in your legs, placing you out in the whitened grass as you stare, entranced. The first snow of Winter always returns you to a childhood self, mouth watering at the prospect of a familiar world made strange. Adventures call through the glass, the darkness of night no longer frightening, lit up with white crystal illuminations.

Back in bed, you can't sleep, smiling. A cautious car slushes past the window slowly. Solitary explorer in the becalmed forest of a snow-bound city night.

The ghost of David Kelly

The sad, harmless, bearded face of David Kelly has been staring out of news reports again. Our national obsession with the death of this man follows us around, a lonely spectre dogging our social memory. I'm almost amazed that so many busy professionals and experts have taken up his hopeless case once more - reminding us of the sad, ambiguous story of his death which no amount of spin or apathy could neutralise into background noise.

It reminds me of a question posed by my English teacher when we studied Hamlet at 'A'level. The ghost of Hamlet's father follows him around, like a guilty conscience. Our teacher asked us whether we thought the ghost was real, or just a manifestation of Hamlet's tortured psyche. I didn't know the answer, but it feels as though David Kelly's ghost still haunts us for our collective weakness and reluctance to question the terrible, transparent story we were spun.

We killed him one way or another. Taunted, vilified and scape-goated by Downing Street bullies through the very media who exposed him to their gaze. And we, bystanders, hapless members of the public. We watched on like children in a playground. Now those scenes replay themselves in our collective mind, grown older but perhaps no wiser in the intervening years.

"Do not forget. This visitation
Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose...."

Empty

The city groans with unexpected lightness in the Summer months. Streets are quieter than usual and the parks empty of joggers in the morning, picnicking families in the afternoon. An unfamiliar population takes over, with matching backpacks and guides with clipboards flapping at their sides as their ranks pass by.

Trying to sell plants for charity in the park is a thankless task in the hot sun or drizzling rain. In an hour maybe six people pass by - tourists with no space for rosemary or mint in their picnic bags; grey, haunted faces walking alone, bereft of the crowds in which they would usually be lost; stressed parents, feeling the strain of the school holidays as their children crash into them on recumbent bicycles.

Who would have thought this season would be such a barren time? The city's population so unfamiliar, daily routines indiscernible in the chaos of lost feet on the pavement. Unnoticed by its inhabitants on beaches and in villas far away, Autumn's rustling steps can be heard in the distance. The brown edges of the trees, once signifying parched heat, grow slowly towards the centre. In the breaks in hot sunshine, the wind has a chilly edge. Neglected in this August month, I worry that the city will appear strangely changed to its returning inhabitants. But no, after a few short days surely,all will return to those instinctive rhythms that inspire the tunes of my writing?

Sun kissed

Later, waiting for the bus to take me home, I noticed a splash of brightness in the shadowed street. The golden dancer on top of the Victoria Apollo Theatre was lit up as if by a spotlight, centre stage. Black-winged birds circled around it, as if trying to draw the attention of heedless commuters and confused tourists to an unexpected moment of beauty in the city. It definitely worked for me.

Mirage

At a boring work event near Victoria I saw this beautiful image. Well it's not this image I first saw, it was the tiled floor so beautifully glossy it looked like a swimming pool. I wanted to open the glass windows separating us and dive straight in. Then I realised there was no water there, and the reflection emerged to replace the mirage. Like a gift presented only to those with the patience to look and notice.

Insomnia

Irritated, I cede to the persistent tug of night time humidity. Conserved heat from the day mixes with that radiating from my fitfully sleeping body reeling me back from my rest - too soon! Weary, weary feet touch the too warm carpet and flinch.

It's dark outside, but never really black. The streetlights are a sickly sulphur cloud in the sky. Opening the fridge provides some relief from the heat, but the flourescent light scars my retina, leaving glow worms in front of my eyes. An ice cube, sucked miserably, creates a small halo of cool in the back of my mouth, but never reaches the spaces between my toes.

Back to bed, the sheets feel like hot sand on the beach.

It breaks

Finally the relentless heat of the city is turned down, if only for a short while. Wilted window boxes momentarily recover. Drops fall heavily from above, making extravagant splashes on beer tables and window screens. The summer rain, somehow wetter than in other seasons (as if making up for the parching sun), wrings every drop of moisture from the atmosphere.

Pavements sizzle like hot frying pans under the cold tap. The smell of wet tarmac, blistered paint from windows and doors, of plants released and something muskier and even more primeval, is inhaled in deeply. Where before breaths were short and shallow, conserving energy, voices stifled by the billowing heatwave; now carefree voices carry over the water, like crowds of day trippers in rowing boats.

The break works it's short lived magic. Life is but a dream.