January 2009 has blessed us with pleasant weather out in the field. Since we returned from Christmas holidays, every day has been cold but dry, and one could ask for no more. Walking around, the ground was solid underfoot. One wasn't bogging down in the slop like before Christmas. Good times, while they lasted.

However the weather has changed these last few days, turning mild, windy and wet. The forecast said so much, but of course no one thought it would change. Yesterday was mild and windy, today added wet to the equation. It was a day for sitting inside looking out.

Looking out the through the perspex portholes, I was fascinated at how the wind hunted the Autumn leaves out of the recesses where they had hidden since December, how it tossed them up in the air, only for them to find new crevices to hide in until the next gust, or maybe the one after. I was fascinated by how they piled, one after the other, into the next convenient gap they could find.

How this reminds me of our economy and its current woes. Crevices and gaps existed and multiplied during the fair weather, when whatever mild breezes there were hunted the dried, brightly coloured leaves (with bridges on them) on to the next stop on their journey. Maybe some of them keep going, bouncing on into the abyss, or at least into the next field, never to be seen again, but there were so many it was easy to see a large pile form, safe for now, and keep gathering, as where one stops, another is sure to follow. And so the leaf piles built.

Safety in numbers. And so many layers mounted up, one on top of the other, and with time it was all but impossible to tally up how many lay in each nest. But when a strong enough gust of wind comes along, how they all give themselves up into the air. Maybe there weren't so many there after all? Maybe as they lay there, in a large, dense heap, a dose of leaf mould set in.