grey clouds

"put the light on." My father tells my mother as she attempts to come up the stairs to her bedroom.

I miss the perpetually low-hanging grey clouds in England.



Matthew Horne took this photo. Hope he won't mind me borrowing it. He posted it on his twitter page. It's in Barry, Wales, connected to England, and very like it weather wise, where "Gavin and Stacey", the T.V. show he is in, resides. Seeing the picture -- the clouds -- made me realize that feeling I must have always felt when walking outside in England, seeing in the distance the clouds, a staple of the English environment. It is of a sort of choking feeling. Only aided by the crisp air that tends to accompany the view. How grey clouds can be so beautiful may be a mystery. They don't bring with them the idea of loveliness. Perhaps because it is the first thing you witness -- that hits you -- when you arrive in England. They must have me.

I feel like London is (for me) like a bad lover -- one that you know you should avoid, who will only make you happy some of the time, but you really want. It seems that that happiness -- which you are afraid you will never feel without this attachment -- is enough for the times of ennui, solitariness, and emotional starvation.