Getting in the Festive Spirit

It can be a little difficult to believe that it’s Christmas when the temperatures are in the twenties and you’re climbing at height in the mountains in shorts and a t-shirt. Equally fantastically our local town has only just put up their Christmas lights so we have totally bypassed that commercial build-up to a frenzied festive season. Just the way I like it.

Last Friday we had our son’s first ever Christmas play to attend, however, and even though the ‘after-party’ (buffet) was held outside in the sunshine it was still enough of a seasonal spur to launch us into the festive mood. (I’ll admit I even shed a soppy proud maternal tear.)

Yesterday I surfed for the first time in an AGE, in lovely, small, clean waves with the sun shining down on my head. That’s also the plan for tomorrow, Christmas Day. A dog walk on the beach with friends, a picnic and hopefully some perfect waves to ride.

As the sun set on another glorious day today I dashed out the door and up the hill to take this photo of the evening sun drenching the snow-capped Picos in ethereal light. My Christmas card to all the lovely readers of this blog who have accompanied me through 2012.

 

Silent Sunday

Silent Sunday

Silent Sunday

Sky

A spectacular Spanish sunset. Valdehuesa, León

The photo I posted on Sunday prompted a flurry of cloud-related comments. The hypothesis was proposed, seconded and swiftly carried that Spanish skies are far more interesting than their English counterparts.

A quick glance out my window does nothing to dispel this notion. Right now, the sun is setting off to the west and the sky is stained a cinematic blood-red. In the early mornings we are often privy to a cloud inversion. To be above the clouds whilst still earth-bound is a heady sensation.

Even on more muted days, when atmospheric conditions conform to the norm, it seems the sky here cannot fully suppress its epic tendencies. Cloud formations sweep in from the sea and crash against the foothills of the mountains where they experiment with form and texture in the manner of a particularly daring avant-garde artist.

I love walking under large skies. I love watching ever-changing horizons. I love being caught up in the storm of imagination that crashing clouds can provoke. I love living where I do.

Having said all that, I don’t know for sure whether Spanish skies really are more epic than English ones. Maybe it’s just that our experience of the English sky is often limited to that drab sub-section that hangs over cities or our commute thereto. Maybe it’s just that we’re often too busy in our adult lives to even notice the sky above us. It can take a holiday, a new country, a change in the day-to-day to drop the blinkers from our eyes and yank our heads heavenwards.

Perhaps the best sky of all is always going to be the one you laid under as a child on a summer’s day. The one you gazed up at as you dreamily pictured your future spread before you as the cloths of heaven. Perhaps gazing up at the sky today, wherever we may be, is one way to drift deliciously back into that younger self, those former dreams.

What about you – what’s your patch of sky like? Do you get enough chance to gaze up at it and daydream? When did you last sit and watch the sun set?

Silent Sunday 15/04/2012