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Smoke’s curling out from the top of the chimney; the day is grey, a shade somewhere between the meditating heron’s back & the negative-blackness of the cormorants barely skimming the salt water. The light begins to fail at four o’ clock on November days like this & a prolonged dusk adds to the sombreness of the day. Sea in the bay reflects nothing. There’s no break in cloud cover, only layerings of darker & dark. I’m taken by surprise, then, by the vivid yellow of the furze bushes to the west of the bay. As I warm my eyes with their glow, I’m distracted by the dartings of a wren, brown in her cave of spikes. Sheep graze furze in hard winters; I’m thinking it would need to be hard indeed to get past those inch long spines, which are in fact its leaves. It was once ground as cattle fodder & is still fed to horses who apparently delight in it. I’m lost in the quick jinking of the wren & the hardiness of this plant, when the rich almond smell of the flowers reaches my nose; it’s zesty & sends me straight back to childhood kitchens & marzipan. Warmed by memory, scent & sight, I stroll on, nonchalant in the cold wind.