Winter Nature Notes

Beautiful winter late afternoon: clear blue sky, the sun going down in flames beyond the steam billows of Didcot power station, and some streaky grey-purple clouds in the east. Windscreen flecks of motorway salt refract the last sunlight, all scratchy on the eye.

By the time I get to Junction 9, the northern sky is a perfect winter gradation: down from pale blue, to aquamarine, through orange and yellow, to that hazy, rusty winter brown near the horizon. A silhouette light plane drifts across the sky, and two parachutists circle down into the dusk.