…in spite of which Pax and I did the big loop. Later, without him, I rode my bike to a haircut. Than again, it is December. Better gloves are going on my Santa list.

I leant upon a coppice gate,
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires…

—Thomas Hardy