The moon is still ruling the sky in the west, a bright white light in the inky blue, and it is only when you look to the east that you can see the blue is fading, a thin strip of pale sky showing below the grey-gathered clouds. Yet you would know it was the hour of dawn before you ever looked east, for walking through the dark garden there is such a clamour of birdsong. What a wonder that they wake and welcome the dawn each day, no matter the hour or the weather.

The garden that at first seems a dark, alien place is warmed by their sound, and the far rumble of cars and trains, and the distant light in a bedroom window. I have been here five minutes and already the sky has changed, the light is diluting the dark and the blue at the edge has been washed away by pale pearl grey. It is changing fast enough to see the difference but slow enough that you can’t notice the changing. It is still, there is no obvious movement of light or colour, just a steady increase of glow. The clouds have disappeared, and now there is a hint of yellow at the horizon, smiling at the still-sailing moon behind me.

We often resist change, the noisy destruction of what is known and the clumsy erection of what is to take its place. But each day we live through these subtle changes that our lives revolve around without noticing, a rhythm of body and earth. Each day brings the gift of new held in the arms of the familiar. I am sitting waiting in the womb of the day, and there on the horizon is Tuesday coming to meet me.