Saturday 28th December - Trees in Winter

The advantage of having given up driving is that I am now completely free to look at anything that catches my attention. What I am being attentive to at the moment is the skeletal trees outlined against the sullen skies as we drive to and from the hospital. 

Every so often there is a bird, or sometimes several birds, hunched on the bare branches. As it happened, I recently read this poem in a book I was given, '101 poems to learn by heart' selected by Ted Hughes, which describes this. Here is the first verse;

Field Glasses - Andrew Young

Though buds still speak in hints,

And the frozen ground has set the flints

as fast as precious stones

And birds perch on the branches, silent as cones,

The poem goes on to describe the effect of using field glasses to bring the distant view closer, so that he can see the birds without creeping up and potentially scaring them away.

At first I was puzzled by the phrase 'silent as cones', but I then I saw that really was the shape of the birds in the furthest trees.

It's been quite misty, foggy even, these past few days. The clouds have been low enough to shroud the tops of the tallest trees. The way to the hospital takes us past the airport, and usually we can see planes flying low across the road, either about to land or having just taken off. (Maybe not so much today!)

It's a reminder to me that above those thick, dense, apparently unpenetrable clouds the skies are blue and the sun is shining. 

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My father is making progress. Slow, but definitely improving. 

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