Member-only story
The nights get darker, the days get colder.
Winter is coming.
As I drive home I can see that people have already put up their Christmas decorations. Are we really almost in December already? So many people are looking forward to a normal Christmas this year. I lost my Dad to Covid just before Christmas last year, I don’t share their enthusiasm.
My hands are getting chapped from the cold. The nights get dark around 16:00 which means I’m going up to the yard to feed my horse in the pitch black and the freezing cold. My head torch picks out the bright eyes of the foxes running free around the fields and the odd bunny rabbit who hasn’t yet huddled up for the night.
There are many stars visible in the clear sky. When my hands aren’t completely frozen, I sometimes pull out my phone and open the app which tells me what the stars are and where the planets are. It’s quite humbling to stand and stare at the small pink spot that is Mars. Despite the vast distance of over 33 million miles, mankind has somehow managed to land several robots on the surface. On that small pinprick of light, a robot is roving around, sending home pictures of a planet so unimaginably far away.
When I finally get home, I change into my comfy clothes and wrap up warm. My heating kicks in and I try not to think of how many pennies it is costing me to be able to…
