Morning ruminations....

The sky is overcast - a uniform dull grey but with the sun up behind it it is has a glow to it.  All is quiet, even the birds are still as the light erratic drizzle lands softly on the ground.  Even that is quiet.  A few tiny drops occassionally splotch agains the window but so softly that they go unnoticed.

The household still sleeps on this chilly Sunday morning.  So I take a moment to absorb the stillness.  The rattle of the kettle grates in my head so I turn it off again.  I can wait.

I sit here now, only the sound of my fingers tapping on the keyboard, but even that is muted.

The rain gets a little heavier and I can hear it like a slow moving brook, bubbling and tinkling away outside.  It wanes again and a small gust of breeze wafts the drops away from the window.  Drops so small that they have no will of their own - too light to fall directly to the ground if there is even the slightest breeze.

The sun continues to climb and I know it only because the clouds are getting lighter.  I do not even know what position the sun is in.  It is a grey, damp and dank morning and yet this eerie light bring out all the greenness of the plants in the garden.  They seem to glow.  In this light the white blossoms on the plum tree are painfully clear and pure.  In this light the bluebells sway gently, tossing off water drops onto the cyclamen below.  The dark grey bark of my giant walnut tree stands in relief against the brown rendered back wall of the neighbours house - the intricacy of the branching so mesmerising at this early hour. 

The neighbours gutters are leaking and as the water drips drips and drips it gets a rhythm that is soothing to me.

The rain stops... it is even quieter.  Somewhere in the house a board creaks, a window contracts.  The cat has curled up on top of the TV cabinet and I can hear her purring.  I look out the window to my left and again am awed by the red bark of my japanese maple - even more pronounced now as the new leaves are coming out, so green, so tender and delicate.....

Another creak of floorboards.....someone is up.  And there goes the whoosh of the central heating, the timer doing its duty faithfully day after day.  My time is up.  For one second all is still again.....

Time to go dear reader - the day has begun....