The most wondrous fog

The fog has cleared now, but it was wondrous. For the past week, all day long, every day, there has been thick fog throughout a large portion of the county of Norfolk where I live. At the same time, the temperature wavered just above or just below freezing. The result was beautiful. Up until the temperature suddenly dipped to freezing and the fog came, it had been unnaturally warm here. Even under normal circumstances, these days, there are some flowers right through winter, but this year, many flowering plants had been fooled into flowering. So when the fog came with the temperature hovering around freezing, all the leaved and flowering plants became etched with frost. The longer the fog and the just freezing temperatures went on, the more layers of frost were deposited, and the results were magical. The news has been shoing the pictures that people had sent in. Whole bushes apparently made entirely of delicate white ice crystals, a rose in full bloom, each petal and stamen edged and etched with sparkling frost. And what made it all especially magical was the fog. I traveled on a train this last Friday. With the fog, these visions appeared suddenly out of a white blankness only to disappear again a second later. You get the same experience walking a familiar path. A tree you had seen every day was suddenly a work of art.

At the same time, the fog has made the sidewalks carpets of moss and lichen. Even my doormat has moss growing. Fences of all materials are topped by moss. With the fog going on for days on end, it almost seemed as if we had somehow moved through a doorway between eras, returning to a time when it would not have been a surprise to see a faerie sleeping in the hollow of one of those roses, or to meet the green man, his features edged in frost. You begin to understand on a heart-deep level the England that faerie tales were born in. Perhaps there's still a bit of druid in each of us. I felt my part stirring this last week.

Dec. 3, 2006

Today is my birthday. I'm 56.

We're going out! To a pub! Why does this deserve exclamation marks? It's been so long since we have been out at all. My husband, in all the time we have been here has not felt comfortable with it. Part of it is the alcohol-centeredness of pub life. I've tried to tell him that it is not the same as a bar in the US, that it's OK to bring the kids or granny (if we had any), that it's more like Central Perk (with alcohol), that it's a neighborhood gathering place more than anything, that hanging at the local pub, even for a cup of tea (which, surely, we could have afforded), was a good way to "join", so-to-speak, the neighborhood, to get to know our neighbors, to form relationships of all kinds.

When we first came here, we had one meal at the pub down the hill. It's a rather classy place, where young people who have money lunch, apparently, though it has a pizza place as well. It stretches along the river, as three out of the four pubs in our neighborhood do. We are older and have no money. It would take more than one visit, but I do not think it matches us.

We will go to the one pub that does not stretch along the river, although it is across from the riverside park where we feed the swans. In warm weather, folks hang out at the picnic tables out front and in the beergarden created from an old building on the side. It's an old building, next to the church with net curtains (lace curtains, I live the US word for that much better) and fairy lights.

Sweetie has put aside enough to have a celebratory meal, he thinks. He may be right, or we may need a bit more. If so, I have it. I appreciate that he will finally come out. A meal is not likely to be the socializing experience that I envisioned, but it's a start, and it is what he is presently comfortable with. I hope it will be good enough that he will want to come back. If not, there are still the other two pubs to explore.