![\"snowdrops](\"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/mindthegap\/files\/2025\/12\/snowdrop.jpg\")
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Silent night.<\/p>\n
Well, not really night anymore, as I first opened this page at 4 AM. Out the window brittle stars burn, though the faintest of glows already encroaches. That limbo before morning, when the house is utterly silent, the central heating’s hum not yet kicked in. Even the chatty robins still sleep, and no cars or planes rumble past. After three days of windstorms, the air too is completely still: no branches shushing or chimes tinkling. I could be the only person awake in the entire world, driven to this state by the bad cold that befell me, typically, on my first full day off work.<\/p>\n
It is also that limbo between Christmas and New Year, when everything has dried up: work emails, chatter from friends, even \u2013 thankfully \u2013 the guilty compulsion to chip away at academic chores. All that remains is your dear family, the larger world pushed away from its glowing, essential core. There is food to prepare, LEGO to assemble, hugs to enjoy, movies to watch, wrapping paper and cartons to recycle, long-postponed chores to consider: sweeping the last of the fallen leaves from the garden paths, for example, or tidying (once and for all) the loft. There are walks to take in the chill afternoons, muddy boots and untidy woods full of berries: holly, ivy, hawthorn, the remains of the sloe. There is the cold North Sea to be plunged into, while passers-by bundled in hats, scarves and gloves stare as if you are mad. <\/p>\n
But reality will resume soon enough. The first snowdrops are already blooming in the village gardens and \u2013 along with the January crocuses pushing through the ragged lawn \u2013 the abandoned list of academic deadlines will soon once again become unavoidable.<\/p>\n
Yet for now: silent night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Silent night. Well, not really night anymore, as I first opened this page at 4 AM. Out the window brittle stars burn, though the faintest of glows already encroaches. That limbo before morning, when the house is utterly silent, the … Continue reading