I asked a young friend, well, a friend of my sons, who lives nearby, to come help me, on a rainy morning, to help me hang some curtains.  He came back immediately with a Yes. Bless his comeuppance #therightmeaningofthe word. I thought it would be the morra, the rainy morning.  It generally is. But these are rain and wind free days, icy clear and freezing, the child of the Winter King learning how to hold the earth concreate, perhaps.  She is still holding, and I love her, the slip and slide of her icy stretch along paths that could, but, as yet, have not skidded my old arse into flat. An ice tumble.  I wonder about minus 24, when I meet minus 3.  Paltry by comparison, I guess, but this country, this beautiful country, one that has seen control, wars, feeble governments and a complete lack of respect for everyone who lives on this land, suddenly feels a whole lot of cold.

If I did pay attention to the news, the buffed up stories of what is happening out there, I could forget my inner laugh. So, I won’t go there. I will, instead, focus on not falling on my arse on the ice, I will lift and swift with the birds who stay close, albeit nervously, as I fill the feeders of a morning, whilst cocking a snook at the Sparrowhawk, up there, somewhere in the ancient pines. Each side of the track looks frozen, is frozen in stasis and beautiful, shapes held by tiny iceflakes, stopped dead like a photograph but in 3D. I stoop to study the way the ice has caught in groove lines, each shape outlined in pure white. The Star moss is a perfect forest, albeit in miniature. Enlarged it wouldn’t be out of place in a Lord of the Rings movie, thick and impenetrable. On warmer days, I could walk by without a second glance, caught up in my own thoughts, but now it takes my breath away, breath that puffs out of my mouth as if I was a kettle coming to the boil. I watch the steam dissipate and think of those crazy mountaineers with icicles on their moustaches, not that I have one of those myself. I squat down to snap a shot on my mobile. I never used to take this thing on my walks, but now I do, what with the flat-on-my-arse possibility, no matter how cautious I am about holding my body directly above each step. 

Walking in nature has been much written about, the healing, uplifting power gained from just getting up and out, regardless of weather. And, I find it is the truth. If I am feeling a tad weary in my alone life, bored, perhaps, my brain scratchy and unitchable, unable to find much joy in the prospect of domestic engagement, I make myself boot up and out. Every single time it works. I tell my scratchy brain to shut the ef up and to notice, notice, notice everything. A sudden bird flip across my path, the moss, the lichen on tree bark, the twisted limbs of the hookah trees, skinny now, bare, ghostly, waiting for Spring. The track is either a straggle of mud or solid as rock beneath my yellow boots. I might meet another walker, perhaps with a dog, always a delight. We might chat for a few minutes, share a laugh, as the dog pushes against my legs for attention. Or, I may be quite alone, just me and the sky and the ghost trees. A young hind watches me walk by, her ears twitching forward as I say a soft hallo and reasurre her that I mean no harm. It must be a lean time for deer now, no grass yet and everything frozen hard as stone. 

I return home refreshed and lively to my cosy island home. I build up the fire, make tea and sit to watch the garden birds, the spread of ice on the tidal loch, the darkling hills beyond. Smoke from faraway chimneys lifts into the blue, spirals of warmth rising straight up as there is no wind to snatch them away. The tea is hot and nourishing and I might just get out the hoover now, now that my mind is cleansed of sludge. The task is still a dull one, but that connection with the out there of my life has soothed my itchy brain into calm. Thankful for such a wonderful life, I rise into action, whilst my curtains watch me from inside a plastic bag. You will hang one day, I tell them, and then wonder if I might put that another way.