A cloudless night holds until morning. A sunrise near freezing, just cool enough for your grassy steps to rustle. And a civilised time for it: just before eight. The sun is low, lighting the dome of every drop as I leave town out to where Lincolnshire becomes Rutland and the flat land begins to ruck.
As soon as I leave the town, where the ground can breathe, I enter a bright murk. It’s thin enough for me to see the sunlight colouring the trees through it, as if watched through a veil. Then there’s the open view I like, a landscape of shallow valleys cut by streams, farmland, deciduous woodland on the seasonal turn. And on autumn mornings like this the mist lifts between them and there rises this scene.
I was taught about mist in simple, imperfect terms I still think of. Warm day air can gather moisture up, spreading it through the sky. Cold night air can’t, and drops it thickly to the ground. Mist at sunrise and you’re seeing the change.
Perhaps it is its clandestine nature, but mist makes me curious. Is it denser in pockets, like it appears at a distance, or does it shift as you move, like a mirage? Is it fog or mist? The forecasters say the difference is visibility; a kilometre or more, it is mist. Less, it is fog. Though it is tempting to think of one as a nuisance and the other as an affectation.
In the fields I walk through this morning everything shines, rich autumn colours grow richer, the mibbit of a meadow pipit somewhere I can’t see. Spiderwebs of dew beads, hanging heavy like wet sheets. Where the sun catches the mist I see it alive with moisture, frantic in still air.
I like this because it is so fleeting. Only for a few weeks a year can I have this view, in these conditions, in these colours, at a time of day when I can go and enjoy it. And then when it does happen, this delicate layering, a perfect stalemate between the sunshine and the mist, lasts no more than 10 minutes. It either burns away or becomes fog. And in between, the day’s most magic minutes.
