biscuitville

But night has settled.

The embers have red eyes and it is really quiet except for R's rhythmic breathing and some minor tinnitus. Outside the house there is a garden, or call it a field. The voles have certainly had a field day or three. An owl was heard this morning and we found an owl-leaving: a regurgitated pellet of a vole.

This is a summer place and we shouldn't be here now. It is hard work at the best of times, but now also cold and damp. Birchwood fire has driven out the clinging moist air finally. It took two days.

Inside there is winter disorder; a startling quantity of things: furniture, baskets, books, clothes, kitchenware, electrics, piled up on each other in senseless teetering stacks, with newly woken spiders and the corpses of long dead mice, dry and weightless.

Eyes on you, biscuit; eyes on you, chocolate; the wine is long gone. Stuff the snacky, there is heartburn and the night is folding in at last and the beginning is coming to an end.