Walking in the Dark

I'm just back from a walk over to my old house and back, about two miles each way - I came back along the river, and had the opportunity to take photos of swans with a flash. Flash at night can have interesting results, but the subject has to be just far enough away to look mysterious - any closer and the usual flash glare takes over, any further away and the picture dissolves into low-light CCD fuzz.

I think the reason I love walking outdoors at night so much, is because most of my favourite memories of the last decade are of spending time wandering after dark with friends, drinking cider and talking. Any weather is good, in any season - perhaps some wouldn't enjoy it, but one night sitting talking on the footbridge behind the old Diglis industrial estate (now yuppified) in the pouring November rain (Nooooo, I curse you Guns'n'Roses!), is the best memory I have of L. On the other hand, T and I both know that a bottle of gin and a deep February freeze can sometimes mix badly - "I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, it's too cooooold, my fingers are numb," etc etc etc in gin-sodden fashion.

Although I sometimes feel like I've gone through a spacetime warp into some kind of Jamie Oliver version of Midsomer Murders, Worcester is wonderful for night-time walking - in Manchester I had to get a bus out to Alderley Edge or wherever, but here I'm two minutes away from the river, and fifteen minutes away from fields and the edge of town. Night-time in the city is public; in the country, it's private.

Speaking of fields, I must start to plan this year's mushroom-picking. There's a field quite close that's grazed by cattle; in a few weeks time when it's colder, and there's rain overnight, it'll be time for a dawn mission.

It's odd how long you can spend programming, seemingly suspended in (caffeine-)time, when you've got a task in hand. I got up this morning at about 9am, and started work on a web database application I'm doing for the Worcester Citizens' Advice Bureau; the next time I looked at the clock, it was nearly 5pm. If I could have a job like this that'd pay (it's voluntary), I might actually stick at it (although I'd rather be freelance - dancing like a puppet to the hands of the clock is not a way of life I consider justifiable).

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Syllabically-spoonerised word of the day:

Phaustroclobia

Soundtrack:

Chopin's Nocturnes, played by Maria João Pires