Right now, we are in our own version of the doldrums
It was described as Black Friday but from where I was sitting all I could see was an endless plateau of grey.
Under thick clouds like these the sun never seems to rise nor set. The light just gradually fades as if some celestial hand rests upon the dimmer switch. I find these brumous days curiously oppressive.
That great chronicler of the clouds, John Constable, memorably described the sky as the “chief organ of sentiment” in his art.
But recent vistas have reminded me more of the dreary industrial whiteouts of Lslowry’s cityscapes – what he once called the “sad, dampcharged afternoon sky”.
The mill chimneys may have long ceased belching out their smoke, but still in such weather it is impossible not to scuttle about the streets like some hard-pressed industrial toiler, shoulders hunched and face-pinched against the elements.
It is that time of year when I go home with the cold in my bones and, as the latch clicks closed, all-too briefly imagine how awful it must be to sleep without a roof over my head.
As your weather correspondent I’m afraid to mention that these dreary days are going to drag.
Downpours are forecast today in southern England but otherwise it is pretty much cloudy skies expected elsewhere.
In fact, this version of the doldrums looks as if it will persist until at the very least Tuesday, when some wind and rain might sweep in from the west to stir things up a little.
To keep going amid such persistent drabness, it is worth recalling the words of another great British recorder of the industrial age, Charles Dickens.
“There is one broad sky over all the world”, he wrote in Nicholas Nickelby, “and whether it be blue or cloudy, the same heaven beyond it”.