101 .20.04.2012 Red sky at night

101 .20.04.2012 Red sky at night

Quarter past eight on a Friday evening in April.

Drip drip drop is the sound  in the garden.  The old higgledy slates on the wood shed are shining and the drainpipes are gurgling with melted hale.  On the other side of the valley the farm windows are filled with golden sun. On our side the sun has taken a bow for the night. It makes a point of not overdoing it at this time of the year.   The bursting trees down below are bathing in a faux autumnal glow..  Above the  snow tipped  mountains the clouds are on fire.  And every bird  in Conwy county is singing in our garden. Or so it seems. Perhaps the red sky at night is filling them with delight.

An hour earlier  the weekend was heralded in by black clouds, stair rods and hale.  Toast and tea and earlier than normal jim jams and radio 4 and a roaring fire offered comfort.  Even the hale was appalled by the conditions outside and frantically tapped at the windows to be let in.  Some of it found a way in down the chimney but looking down realised that a sooty spitting death was beckoning.  Some managed to bounce out of the pyre but a black lingering death on the hearth was their fate.

And then all of a sudden everything outside was orange and bright and shining and glistening and new. But it’s the  birds... the birds were, to be brutally frank,  ecstatic.

TGIF  Have a good weekend!