ICE WIND

There’s a raw, icy wind out there tonight. I noticed it as I pulled the gate shut at Sammy’s and walked to my car, lit silver by the cold moonlight.

It feels like the first blast of winter. Autumn has been cool, certainly, but there has been a current of warmth in the air these last few weeks. The leaves have danced happily in the sun and the trees have turned to honey-fire and mustard with the last remaining greens and yellows, as always they do. Even at night, the wind has been playful and warm.

But not tonight. The gloves are off, and the breeze has ice cold fingers, reaching through the folds of my coat, shivering along my collar and into the pockets, curling like icicles around my knuckles.

“So,” crackled the car radio, “With Europe entering a fourth wave, is there any chance of restrictions returning here?”

Europe is indeed having it bad again. The expert caller said it was unlikely to spike in the UK like it has in Austria. We’re already high, he said, and we’re better vaccinated. I watched the road flash under the car and the frost-lined hedges whip past in the headlamps. In any case, he went on to say, we should call them ‘preventions’ not restrictions, as it would ‘paint a better picture for the Great British public.

I, much like the presenter, was not swayed. I was picturing a second Christmas in lockdown, desperately missing my family and friends. I was thinking about all the events that might need to be cancelled, regretfully postponed or scaled back. Worse, I was thinking of uncomfortable parties, followed by days of us playing the guessing game of who pinged whom, and how much time did I spend at close quarters with them, glugging mulled wine in a paper hat?

You can call them preventions if you like, but it’s remarkable optimism to claim that life has not been restricted in some way by this dreadful disease and our efforts to prevent it spreading.

The moon beamed down at me through the chilly night. I don’t know what this winter has in store. Perhaps, like the sparkling dew already forming on the frozen concrete, there is some beauty to be found in it. Perhaps the joy of the season is the warm glow of home and the promise of fireside hot chocolate? Perhaps it’s about wrapping up warm and braving the cold, but only when you absolutely have to.

All I know tonight is that it’s absolutely freezing out there.