Winter crept silently over the woods and banished autumn

Here, it was a chilly ending to October; there, on the Greek island which we left just 48 hours ago, it was a warm sea and a white beach and the infinity of space above us a cloudless blue.

The sky in Ireland the other morning when we stepped out of our car at 5.30am. after, a 21-hour (heroic!) journey, was also blue — blue-black — the ‘floor of heaven’ pinpricked with silver stars. It was cold, a winter night, sharp and clear.