Grey and Glee

The sky, cut into neat rectangles by the black lines of the window frames, is a shade of bank holiday weekend grey. A nearly flat shade of no-colour, wet looking and swollen - in places - with lighter streaks of no-colour. A wet and day dreamy colour, cold and desolate and so utterly typical. So typical in fact that it threatens to become a cliche.
Everyone is complaining about 'the overcast weather' and it being symptomatic of 'typical England', whilst at the same time being quite surprised that it is grey and cold. I saw the headline of the Daily Mail warn that the 'cold spell' will 'continue into June' in tones suggesting that this outcome may be only slightly less unnerving than some kind of apocalypse.
I went out this morning to Portland Road for The Guardian. My god, it was cold. That kind of sinking wet cold that seems to creep into your fingers. Bones of old people, arthritic premonitions. The wet pavements had a kind of hypnotic glare to them. The branches of the front garden trees were heavy with blossoms, and the air was thick with their scent, and that fecund smell of late rainy springs.
I came back home and read bits of The Guardian and some fantasy novel I bought yesterday, toyed (and am still toying) with the idea of popping into town to buy Burzum's re-recorded versions of his early songs. Just waiting to sync my i-pod having put on yesterday's Tiamat album on.
I might meander through the churchyard by Tescos on my way into town, past the graves and the street drinkers and wish I could still smoke a cigarette sat on a bench while looking up into that old shadow of a church tower.
This is an M.R.James day, a day for Victorian ghost stories and meandering daydreams whilst staring out of the window, a sleepy midday creeping into a long slow afternoon and a languid half-light evening.