An Irish mist can move mountains

THROUGH my work-room window, I look out at the mist hanging over the field beyond the beeches and my imaginings of an Indian summer are dissolved in water-vapour so dense the horses are like spectres walking riderless through cannon-smoke, lost in a region between heaven and hell.

“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”, indeed. Last week, I commented on autumn’s fruitfulness; today, one can’t see the hedges for the mists. We hear that, inland, the sun is shining out of blue skies over golden fields, blessing the late harvests. Not here, where, drowned in coastal fogs, we see no sun. But there is a sort of alchemy in this weather. Through alchemy, base metal is turned to gold; here, it’s the reverse; the gold of the sun is turned to base metal, and the outlook is as grey as lead. But it has its uplifting moments.

The sea is silent, flat calm. A ghostly figure stands chest-high in the channel, fishing for bass. Beyond him, water gives way to mist. There is no sound; it is suspended in the drenched air. There is no rain, only the soft air which one imagines one could cut with a sweep of one’s arm as one might slice through a gauze curtain. But it doesn’t work, the billion droplets of water vapour fill the space. We are 70% water ourselves, and 70% of the earth’s surface is water. We’re blest with water in this sodden country of ours and cannot complain. But tell that to the man or woman managing the clothesline. In the nocturnal and diurnal rains, clothes are washed once, washed twice, and if left out long enough the colours are washed away.