"The misty morning steals awake"

The weather during the months of July/August, moves closer day by day to deep winter. The dawn arrives later and the evening darkness comes earlier. The days grow short and crabbed and are reluctant to yield any grudging sunlight and the air remains cool and damp. It is grey, still and wet. We wake to mornings that are uniformly grey with heavy cloud cover, thick and massive, pressing down over the land. There are a couple of hours in the early afternoon when the daylight is brighter but during most days the air itself remains moist and heavy. Slate grey puddles cover the surface of the land, reflecting the lowering weight of clouds above. There is no warm sun, no blue empty sky, only grey pressing down from above and a stone-grey earth below. During these cold, damp and dreary weekends, we snuggle in front of our roaring fire.