A friend of mine in Lewes, James, spoke to me recently of the joy he finds in “foraging in the gloaming”. I hadn’t known the word ‘gloaming’ until he introduced it to me one summer’s evening, when we were walking our boys through the fields in that beautiful evening light, post sunset, pre dark, when all time seems to stand still. I now understand that ‘gloaming’ is from the Old English word glom, meaning ‘twilight’ or ‘dusk’. Uses in literature abound. Tolkien writes in The Lord of the Rings: “Only a glimpse, as through a tall window, could be seen of the great valley ...

 

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