Everything around this house is evergreen, including these blood-red berries. Inside, the walls have seen four hundred years and there's parts that have weathered longer.

Now, the foundations are moving and pulling parts of the house in different directions. Things don't so much go bump in the night as they groan like the wooden hull of an old sailing vessel. Windows break themselves, mostly at night. 

The cracks in the walls appear so slowly they become part of the decoration and some rooms feel higher than others. In some places your sense of balance tells you you're on a slope but nothing looks different.

I wish it wasn't breaking but I love that it is and I wish they wouldn't fix the cracks but I'm glad that they will.

Those pyracantha berries will stay red for a long time to come. But I do miss summer, when they blossom white. But I'd settle for spring.

Does anyone actually like January?