Wednesday 18th January

Sunsets everybody sees, not all the time, but enough for them to be considered commonplace.  But sunrises usually take place before we are awake, except in the winter, but even then you have to be in the right place and the right frame of mind, and of course to have the time; most of us are too busy scuttling to work to notice the beauty all around them.

I stayed over with my friend Barbara last night on the Isle of Dogs. (which of course is no island at all, though it probably was once) I was up before everyone, and partly to avoid the bathroom and breakfast chaos, I let myself out and went for a walk by the river.  You know on Eastenders, the map that slowly revolves. (actually I haven’t seen it in years, and assume it still does) That bulge in the river – that gloopy plum that hangs down into South London – that is where she lives towards the eastern side.  As you come out of her house onto the river you can just see the Excel centre in one corner and Greenwich Naval College in the other, and the sun comes up bang in the middle.  The south bank here is semi-industrialised with a  couple of cranes and chimneys and small hills of aggregate.  At first the sky was dark indigo with the crescent moon still hanging, fading to an almost white pale blue towards the land, black as coal and silhouetted, and the river a bible blue and blacky grey.  There were a few streaks of cloud, a bit like jet trails in straight and chaotic lines but mostly it was cloud free, and then it started.  The few strung out clouds turned from black to the palest of pinks imaginable, then slowly the sky lit up, getting pinker by the minute, as the blue lifted layer by layer becoming a richer fuller blue almost like Mediterranean skies.  Then the clouds seemed to thicken and widen and for a minute or two there were parallel bands of pink and blue fading at the edges and bleeding into each other.  Gradually the pink filled the entire horizon before in its turn turning a pale white shade of blue as all hint of darkness disappeared.

A truly spectacular sight.  And I am reminded that long before mankind first set foot on this precious planet, and long after we have gone, this sun will rise and fall every day creating its own wonderful display, totally oblivious of our desperate little scamperings.