The cold orb moon spins on the lathe of the sky, whiskered in our firmament by winter cloud clods before attending our earthly plane on skittering, shallow puddles in the Lidl car park. I point my phone to the sky and frown at the resulting image.

Flesh and body and bone. Each tree is winter-garbed, baubled with negative space, wrapped in tinsel air. The dog eats from a cow pat, two peregrines ride the wind. Every footstep in this sodden December is a squelch as I take a photo of an underwhelming scene that speaks perfectly to me of this often unseasonal weather month. I share this with my dog and she looks back blankly at me before returning to more “urgent work”. My wife left a couple of hours ago for a week away and I suddenly and unexpectedly feel lonely.

A band of wood pigeons pass overhead, the buffeting of their wings sounds like air being sucked from the sky. Over the noise of construction from the house at the top of the street comes Rocking Around the Christmas Tree. One Christmas in Bath when my daughter was young we stood on the water meadows using a Santa Tracker to watch Father Christmas zoom overhead. She remembers her uncle exclaiming “there he goes!”

Noel, Noel. I read about Saint Christopher carrying Jesus across the river. How the tiny child got heavier and heavier as the crossing progressed. When they reached the other shore Christopher told Jesus he felt like he had been bearing the weight of the world on his shoulders. Jesus replied that indeed he had, as well as He who had made it. Then Jesus vanished. Saint Christopher is always pictured as a giant, at least five cubits tall which is seven and a half feet. There is no evidence to suggest Saint Christopher ever existed but he is a popular saint nonetheless, stewarding faithful travellers safely on their ways.

This is the season of lighting candles. A girthy church candle we have for Advent with one hundred hours of light encased inside and others that I light with people in mind. The flowery orange flicker fills the quiet moments at the end of the day. Last year I could read by it, this year I have to turn on an extra light. On the first Sunday of advent we went to Wells Cathedral and sat in darkness listening to a choir singing from the lady chapel before candles came, and we passed tapers to light our own and the limestone cavern grew and glowed with honeyed flame.

The years come and the years go.

Apparently our universe may in fact exist in a black hole. Nasa have observed that there is a bias in the way galaxies spin, with 60% spinning one way and 40% the other, suggesting some initiating event or structure in place before the Big Bang.

In the darkness, light. A flickering flame, the glinting lens of a telescope, a twinkling eye, a shiny bell, a kindness, a hope, a river of cars heading out into the world, heading home.