The Glen river and path twine about one another and criss cross 11 times in the short 3/4 kilometre of the valley. The Valley itself a glacial secret lying in the fabric of the city. Now filled with bare trees the sound echoes through, from all about its environs, the hum and thrum of traffic, an overhead plane, the ruff ruff – ruff of a yard-bound dog. But within the valley itself is contained the birdsong, its source invisible within the cupola weavings of the ever branching trees
Today is the shortest day, the standstill and turning point from ultimate contraction, a place of yielding, to incremental openings; day by day we can expect a handful of extra light fingering each, from now until the next one. This is beyond hopeful in this most deadpan of months, the opaque white sky that has been hugging its peripheries ever closer, closing into the still of winter. Since the golden drop and turn of Samhain there has been a steady settling into hibernation. Hibernia we are called here, winter island. Coming into the nadir of the year, that habitual doldrum, that lack of stirring from that pallid, dense covering of sky, smothering but not quite quenching the small glow that begins to ignite just a tiny bit from within. I feel the promise and gentle disengaging as the grip of the old loosens on the emergent, shiny and resilient in the breast. The harshest of winter is yet to come; but it will come as the year opens up.