AN DUBHLACHD

I've been trying to write a line or two for every day. Just to remind myself I am a writer.

Hey, we all - thankfully - have these days, so why not practice describing them? Finding new ways to describe an "ordinary" day isn't easy. You soon get into the habit of looking out for those moments, those moods, and swapping descriptors as you do all the other things you usually do.

These are some from December 2025.

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LINES FOR DECEMBER / AN DUBHLACHD

The Gaels call this month An Dubhlachd - the darkness. December 1st could subtitle it, the wetness.

The children – in festive jumpers – sing carols beneath a canopy. Parent, grandparents, and friends get steadily wetter as the rain grows steadily heavier. They applaud every song, and wait to tell the little singers what Christmas stars they are. Love beats weather every time!

The cloud gives up any hope of flying and lays itself down along the motorway. To tired perhaps even to rain - if the darkness hadn't been wringing it out like a sponge!

This was an amphibian morning. Breathing air, if we were going to get anything done, we still needed to get wet!

Storm Bram has sharp teeth, but I do not invite him in. May he spill no blood!

The flock has a regular "fright-path." Any unexpected noise, and they tear into the air, always in the same direction. Above the church roof, around the car park. The cherry trees guide them back to the feeders, where they congregate. Today, against Bram's breeze, the return stretch is stiffer, harder work. But, ohh, the higher, faster, soar-away, with storm-winds beneath their wings…That must be glorious!

The weather forecaster says this is the one good day of the week. So... we are still in weeks that have at least one good day. Nice. But, also, ominous.

This morning looked like Her Majesty the Moon had a silvery sleep-over.

This morning is very much occupied ground. Young Sol is preparing to turn things around.

We swaddle our newborn and enshroud our newly dead. Does this life-long wrapping reflect a cold world and our want of fur, or a difficult world and our eternal urge to comfort?

All the action this morning was in the air, with gulls joining and leaving cloud-streaked higher-ways to who-knows-where. Those of us watching from the ground were left with the back-draught.

A basket of books, left out for taking, ruined instead by the rain. A pie, bought warm, carefully wrapped in its bag, left on a door-step. Those who might have been happy, might have made others happy, had circumstances taken different turns.

Eight and a half thousand people stand by ancient stones, holding up the electronic equivalents of pitch torches to welcome the sun. Back home, I hear a friend got the all-clear. Our sun shines brighter today.

Between high-backed chairs, beneath draped blankets, behind cushion walls, they read by torch-light, and eat treats provided by a passing old man. What land they themselves occupy, is anyone's guess.

Today, the clouds are a ragged but cosy blanket between us and a sky we all choose to believe is bluer, is brighter, will stay that way a few seconds longer.

Christmas Eve. The breeze, a contented sigh. The cold, just enough to rouge a cheek. The moon, a reclining crescent. The sky, grey-blue easing into black. The world, reminding us how things could be. Peace, love, and inspiration, one and all.