The sky , the hedge and the wicker cover of the barbecue, reflected in a plastic bucket full to the brim with rain water. Today drops shine in rows beneath the bars of gates and the the back of benches. Above all they hang at the tip of every feathery branch of every trees and shrub like crystal buds. As they gather weight and fall new drops collect. It is not proper rain but what Jane Austen somewhere calls a "mizzling rain".
Having lived in the same place for nearly 25 years I realize that the people I see regularly as I walk through The Grove or along The High Street - people who have lived here for as long as I - must have grown proportionately older. But I am struck, as this afternoon, when stopping for a chat or waving across the street, that they seem to have altered so little in appearance. Of course it is because, I see them too often to note the accumulation of small changes, which occur form day to day. It is a familiar phenomenon and one which I experience every day myself when I look into the shaving mirror and think that the face I see is the same one that I saw yesterday.
4 comments:
I do like that image very much.
I always liked 'mizzle' for that weather, it has a bit of mist and a bit of meserable in it. I seem to recall we used it often when I was young, I wonder if it's west country or more widespread or if JA coined it, or if it's something that might arise spontaneously all over the place...
or as someone in new york said, "raining puppies and kittens"
When I look in the shaving mirror I see a face that has definitely changed. And if I ponder longer (not a normal practice at this time of the day; shaving is a task to be finished as quickly as possible) I acknowledge the internal changes of mindset, opinion, tolerance, etc. I then ask myself the $64,000 question: am I the sort of person the 40-year-old version of me could have got on with? The jury files out and I know it'll be a long time returning.
Lucy Today at lunchtime I heard on the BBC weather forecast the announcer hesitate after using word "mizzle" and then correct himself and say "a mixture of mist and drizzle."
Tristan There must be expressions for heavy rain in other languages.For example: raining pots and pans. And for the lesser rain: beans and peas.
BB Similar thoughts have assailed me though not when shaving because thought as such has not been revived in me at that time. Later in the day I have come to think that there would be disbelief in the case of the younger person meeting the older, and I think surprise, mild shame and disapproval in the case of the older bumping into the younger.
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