“She knew there were only small joys in life—the big ones were too complicated to be joys when you got all through—and once you realised that, it took the pressure off.”—“Joy”, Lorrie Moore

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The characters in Lorrie Moore’s short stories are a little lost, adrift, disappointed. Like me, I think, churning malodorous thoughts throughout the day. I don’t know why, really.

Perhaps it was spurred by the arctic chill that pervades Ireland, the coldest since 2010. Only minus three degrees this morning. Water froze in the dog’s bowl and in the pipes on the farm, so the cattle didn’t get any water. The office was so cold, I used a hairdryer to warm up the printer. Last night the husband added another quilt to the bed. (The mother-in-law was disgruntled—us, comfortable? Immoral! “The prodigal son thing,” says the husband.)

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The other night my bad humour turned into despair around 8 pm. How I made a house for it. Surrendered the best cushions and made it cup after cup of tea. Offered it biscuits, hoping it would not eat me.

Later I dreamed: a large skinned animal lopes, shrieking and keening, down the long iced driveway behind our house, into the dense fog that cauls town and veils the stars. Blood freezes in the open maw of the land.

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Still, our small patch in the world is pretty in this weather. Each blade and branch coated in thick hoarfrost, trees dripping in diamond-bright air, crystals floating above walls where the sunlight hits. I hang a suet ball in the ivy for the resident robin.

It hasn’t snowed yet. I want snow. I crave snow: the deadening drift and down and heave of it, smothering the noise and bustle of town and country, all calm, if only for a moment.

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