A thin skein of ice over everything

Monday 13th February

While the thaw seems to have set in today, and they say we are in for some warmer weather, yesterday morning was still very cold.  I was up quite early and went for a walk and found everything was covered with a thin skein of ice.  It was really deceptive, what looked like slightly damp pavements were actually incredibly thin sheets of very clear and smooth ice.  Even in my rubber-soled walking shoes I was slipping all over the place.  Extremely treacherous, especially as the pavements were at last clear of the last remaining scraps of snow, you couldn’t see a thing, but you certainly felt it.  It must have been that the thin dew as it settled had turned to layers of deadly thin ice, that had no traction at all, made worse by the habit of our local council, who, in an effort to modernise our pavements have re-placed the old concrete slabs with a series of herring-bone patterned bricks, which are shiny anyway, so the ice here has become even deadlier.  Even the tarmac paths in the park seemed to wear a thin sheen of ice.  I soon gave up and came back home, I went out later and the ice had mostly evaporated with the warmth of the day.

And I realised that my life is much the same, deceptively safe from a distance, warm and dry, but lurking not far away is the danger zone.  And no matter how I think I am treading in safe dry well tried and trusted pathways, suddenly my feet skid, I lose my balance and nearly come a cropper.

And even my heart, my true and trusty heart that appears so warm and welcoming has before I have even realised, become a victim of the cold spell I am seemingly travelling through.  Though I am trying very hard to be open and giving, even the mirror does not lie; over everything there lies a thin skein of ice.