The epitome of greige.

My cheery alarm call goes off at 7:15 with a local weather forecast. By this time most mornings I have already drunk the first cup of tea and will be contemplating the first cup of coffee. So it is not a wake-up alarm but more of a fleshing out the day review.

Today was forecast as intermittent drizzle throughout the day. Intermittent drizzle suggests very light rain with moments of no rain. Not the incessantly bleak greigeness enlivened by constant heavy rain that is my reality

My orange raincoat was the only bright colour in the landscape. Now I would not normally photograph my rain coat. But I threw my phone on the floor as I wrestled my wet clothes off and the camera took a passing shot of the raincoat as my fingers slipped on the wet case.

All this rain reminds me of a moment of enlightenment that I had in the National Gallery of Victoria, in Melbourne,  2 months ago.

I was on an amazing race against closing time in a gallery that I could have spent hours and hours in. This picture got less than 5 minutes of my attention but I think about it nearly every day

It could so easily be a regular swimmer walking towards the sea on a rainy day. He appears to be checking his phone. He isn’t. I was spellbound by the beauty and tenderness of this painting, entirely painted in shades of greige. An anonymous man captured calmly walking through rain, shower, or voile curtains.

I was shocked to see such a peaceful picture painted by Francis Bacon. Shocked that this picture cannot be of a naked man checking his mobile phone. I cannot unsee my first incorrect thought on seeing this painting, before I realised who the artist was and when it was painted. Shocked too that greige could be so beautiful. I would even hang this greige painting in my house. Which is a big thing to say in the depth of a very wet winter.

Greige has been slightly rehabilitated.

Travel, as they say, broadens the mind. 41 days of rain shrinks it.