It’s underrated, winter. I love it all the way to spring, but Christmas is absolutely my favourite time of the year. It was an utterly immaculate morning this morning: festive with the startling glamour of a snap frost, a brittle dawn. Pale clear skies screaming forever over a frozen landscape, the horizon a curtain of lilac far beyond the deep frozen lawns and calm pristine parallels of box, yew and dry-stone walls. Warm light spilling from painted wooden windows. All across the petrified valley it was toy-like. There was nothing that wasn’t pretty. Pylons like sculptures. Even shrink-wrapped one tonne hay bales — normally the ugliest things on display in the countryside — had a chunky kind of elegance, all in neat rows, incapable of spoiling the view. Ancient oaks mystical, street lamps enchanting, town square crammed with huffing blowing traders.
I love Christmas and I’m starting to feel it now.
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