85.


Early January.



I have just received a text which begins GUESS WHO AM I? Clever ruse. It goes on to advise me to check out a website. So I do out of curiosity. Here it insists the Qu'ran states clearly that to kill one person is a sin; it is as bad as to murder many. So far - good. Then it continues to claim one absolute truth after another in the mathematical ratios and calculations inherent in various natural phenomena. By this time I'm a bit lost. Haven't I heard this somewhere before? The loping, stilted, gappy English is beamed across the ether to be picked up by gullibles.

 Still, the early, grey dusk belies the real truth; that a dunnock pours out its songs so early in the year and that there is the smell of woodsmoke if you  try hard to remember it.