Colm O'Regan: A frost feels right - a chance to draw a breath, and see it come out

Fruit flies know all our secrets. They’ve been in the fridge, the dishwasher, the toilet. Colm O'Regan is glad they're finally gone.

Pic: Roger Kenny 

I loved it but I felt uneasy. It was nice to be out pottering and cycling in nearly late November without being frozen.

It was nice looking at your knuckles on the bicycle and without wondering if they’d ever function again. I’m sure it was a welcome extension for people who work outdoors or the kind of jobs that involve forklifts or on building sites and farms.

It was great for cattle to be still out in the fields puzzled as to why it was getting dark so early.

But I’m sure even they’d agree, it still felt weird. We hadn’t had cold weather yet. The light was winter but the temperature wasn’t.

Like it wasn’t Ireland. Like you were away somewhere nearer the Equator and telling ALL AND SUNDRY this is what we should do in future. “There’s no point in summer holidays. You don’t feel the benefit. Winter holidays from now on.”

I know the difference between weather and climate but it was unnerving to be watching COP26 news and not have used the Big Coat yet.

Warm weather in Winter is fine. Provided you’ve had a bit of Winter first. The first frost is a necessary punctuation for the brain.

And then one morning something felt different. That ‘abroad’ smell of warm fallen leaves was gone out of the air. Sound seemed to be travelling farther and faster. I nosed outside. Frost! What is this sorcery? I was like a spring-born puppy seeing snow.

I had almost forgotten how to get ice off the windscreen. I was nearly about to do it the right way before I checked myself and went in for the kettle to do it the wrong way.

As I went in I noticed there are still fruit flies blundering around the house but now I could laugh grimly. They were like the last people at the party. Still around at half five the following afternoon. Opening a can, searching for the last crumpled Pall Mall and inquiring about when you were planning on getting a takeaway.

And you were tersely telling them that you were going to cook something healthy in the hope it would scare them away.

But then your own second hangover kicked in, you said feckit, ordering #34 and #36 and asking for Last Drag. The fruit flies didn’t stay much longer.

There was a moment where it appeared they were hanging around so long they’d nearly get to six months and you’d either have to make them permanent or give them their statutory redundancy.

One year, fruit flies will survive into the next season and then we’ll be in trouble. They sit there all summer watching us ignore bananas. Unlike fly-flies they don’t be going in and out, busy.

Fruit flies know all our secrets. They’ve been in the fridge, the dishwasher, the toilet. If they make it through to the following year to pass on their knowledge to the next generation, they’ve got more on us than Google. It’s only a matter of time before they’ve got our bank details.

My wife has cosmos flowers that are still blooming marvels but hopefully not for much longer. I don’t like their bright magenta in the cold.

The colour of ink your printer insists you need, even though you have no plans to print the document with passive-aggressive pink comments attached.

The cosmos are tall and wavy. Earlier in the season they look perfectly benign. But nearly-December flowers look sinister. As if they are surrounding the castle of an enchantress and if you but pick one bloom she will trap you forever.

In a world where we’re worried about all sorts of cataclysm, for now, a frost feels right. A chance to draw breath. And see it come out.