Today was a difficult morning. It was cold and I was tired and getting out of bed was a strain. By the time I was ready to go (late, of course – or at least later than usual), the sun was up, bathing the waking valley in golden-red light.

I walk to work. The reasons relate mostly to the lack of available vehicular transportation. It’s less of a hardship than it sounds. It’s good exercise. And I don’t mean “good” in the sense that everyone should have to do exercise every day. It feels good. My walk starts with a steep hill, which gets a little easier every day; then a long stretch of relatively level ground and finally a little stretch that is more open and gentle, where I can relax into the morning. With music, or some mornings without, greeting other morning walkers along the way, it’s a great space to think and process and just be.

Today, I started walking in sunshine. The day had dawned; it was beautiful and clear, except for some wispy mist curling around the foot of the distant hills. Thick dew, maybe even frost, made the morning sparkle as I set off. As I headed out on the flat stretch of my walk, I noticed that the valleys around me were filling up with thicker mist.

Around the corner and mist began to close in. Another corner and I was walking in a world blanketed in white. Eerie silence enveloped everything. Water droplets gathered on my hair and my clothes. I stopped to put the bright orange rain-cover over my day-pack – hoping the cars driving past would see me more easily.

This road is normally busy in the mornings. Today it seemed empty. Occasionally, the headlights of a car would burst through the mist a little way off. In seconds the vehicle had rushed past and was gone. I walked on. Alone in the chilly mist that shut out everything, everyone else.

At work, everything is quite. The thick drifts of mist seem to get heavier all the time. As I sit at my desk, window open to the fresh air, drifts of mist curl around the window-frame, come creeping, stealing into my office. The shapes of bushes in the garden outside are dark silhouettes against the white. The grass is wet with a fine layer of droplets. Nothing moves but the mist. The morning’s sunlight on dew is a distant memory. The mist seems to go on forever.