MONDAY MORNING
It was dark when I got up, Dash had been barking at an owl that was calling from the garden earlier on and was now fast asleep on his chair, determined not to wake up.
While I put the rabbits’ heat pad into the microwave, I also filled the coffee pot and put it on the hob and took the waste food down to the pavement for the dustbin men. The grass that had grown on the drive through the summer crackled with ice as I walked over it; my breath was cloudy, the sky still bright with moonlight and stars.
I clutched the heat pad to me as I walked up into the garden, with my torch lighting the way. The stairs and decking twinkled with cold crystals and the rug over their hutch was stiff in the frost. I would like to say that after I opened up their hutch all was ok, and it mainly was, the rabbits stared at me and hopped a little but their water bowl’s contents had turned to ice. However, once they had some hay and nuggets they seemed happy nibbling in the dark.
Coffee drunk, Wendy still in her dressing gown, I went out to the car and realised it was ages since I had topped up the squoosher liquid as the cap was covered in crinkled autumn leaves. It took half the contents of the bottle and left me feeling satisfied that I would have clear windows for my trip.
Engine on, I took to scraping the windscreen and windows and headlights. A fine dust of ice fell over my fingers. I tapped in the address on the satnav and waited for the windows to clear. Just beyond the trees I could see the very faint beginning of the glow of the dawn.
The road was white and ghostly with frost with the occasional tire track. I decided not to go up over the hill on the Carmen road and instead to go round it via Dumbarton.
I tried the squooshers just beyond Renton. The windscreen blades wiped enthusiastically but no liquid came out so the small scraps of dirt just smeared a little.
Fifty minutes later the sun was rising deep red yellow with a blue black sky melting into something paler besides it. I had been passing white hedges and trees along roads with ice on the verges. It looked beautiful, so beautiful I wanted to stop and walk in the creaking frost of dawn. Instead I wiped the windows with a tissue and carried on to the University. I had worried I would be late, worried I wouldn’t get parked, worried I wouldn’t have taken my talks with me but all those worries were needless.
While I waited to be met at reception I noticed the sculptures all around the corridor and in the courtyard. Eduard Paolozzii, Barbara Hepworth amid notices saying the founders of the University had made sure that the students could study surrounded by art work. I liked that, liked the idea of art everywhere.
I walked into the room where I would speak to all the students. There were fifty people on the screens; they were very kind to me. The lecturer held my book in front of the screen and praised it, I, inevitably glowed! I gave my first talk and we all fell into a conversation that became so detailed we had to abandon the second talk with promises to come back one day; maybe to talk about that or some of the other things we never covered.
On the way home the squoosher worked for the first twenty minutes and then froze again leaving the liquid on the window to freeze in solid wobbled lines.
The heating was on when I got home and Wendy was there, as her meeting in Glasgow had been cancelled by the weather. Lovely to sit down in the warmth while we waited on the children coming back home from school.
(Photo's: Cardross in the frost, Stirling University - december 2022)
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