The mist flows down from the moors

This time of year I'm usually awake and working long before sunrise and, because I don't like to see a black square where the view should be, I don't open the blinds in the study until I notice the light peeking between the slats. Then I take a little break, open the casement wide and see what's happening out there.

It's an operation that needs careful timing. You wouldn't want to do this while the computer is connected to the phone. You see, there's quite a view out there, different every morning, looking over a small shallow valley to the moors beyond. And it's liable to capture you, turning what was meant to be a few deep breaths into an extended "Oh, my!"

Today was a real "Oh, my!" day. By sheer good luck I opened the window just in time to see the beginnings of a great flood of mist pouring over the top of the moors and down into the valley.

It was roiling and rolling all over, forming great clumps and then thinning out again to collect at the low point. There it lay still for a while until wind currents and the rising sun stirred it into action, pushing it back against the hill, fighting gravity to repeat the whole scenario over and over.

Why is it, I wonder, these things always happen when there's no film in the camera? The Nikon sat on the shelf, glowering, useless. Fortunately the little digital snappy camera was right by my side so I grabbed it and fired off a few shots, not in much hope of a result, but you can't pass a chance like this over.

Then I went back for a further long gawp.

For the longest time I stood watching the show. More mist poured over the top and down into the valley, to mix with what was already settling into a great luminous lake. As the light grew stronger, more thermal changes boiled it all up to dance again and again. Then there was a moment where the system reached stability and the lake settled flat and well behaved, moving slowly down the valley toward the sea. It's out of my view but I know from other excursions that, like as not, it went on to flow like a giant ghost river over the cliffs and on to the beach.

I could stand looking out at this for hours, sometimes I do. But I was a good little worker and turned back to the chores of the day, forgetting all about it.

Just now, as the window has turned back into a blank square, I hooked the camera up to the computer to see what I'd got. The little darling came up trumps as it so often does. That Nikon'd better watch out or it'll get traded in against a new and posher digital. You can't pass chances like this over just because you've run out of film.

December 9, 1998

Published in HumanBeams Jan 15, 1999

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