Mist, by Peter Morford

If you can reasonably see the view for half a mile – that’s mist. If you can’t see that far, it’s fog. If you’re choking, it’s smog. If you’re wearing a face mask, it’s Tokyo, Beijing, Los Angeles or London’s South Circular Road.
It’s all very well for Keats to praise the mists of autumn. Wordsworth loitering on misty Westminster Bridge at dead of night could be lonely as a cloud while the city slept. But I’m pretty sure that neither of them was ever stuck on the M1 for three hours while the police cleared up the wreckage. Half a mile visibility is all right if you’re walking a docile horse but at 60 you never see the road signs in time. As any HGV or white-van driver will tell you, fog and mist are bad news if you have a schedule to follow.
Fog was Dickens’ inspiration and he dreamt up ever more nasty deeds for his inventions.

Sorry.
I’ve just realised I’ve already broken my NY resolution circa 2001. Look on the bright side, I told myself, see the good things amid the aggravations of life.

Start again.
Mists and mellow fruitfulness. How true. Use a little imagination. It’s a few minutes before sunrise. The tide is creeping into the estuary. By hazy light you can just see the small boats leaning over in the mud and, beyond them, the outline of a fishing boat, shored up by timbers because a hermit lives there. Look again and you’ll just see the dark shapes of other craft. It is quiet enough for you to hear the tiny sounds. A frog below your window, distant birdsong, the lapping of the gentle waves; the tick of the clock in your holiday rental. It’s already getting warmer and you know that soon the sun will burn off the mist and the old boathouse will be visible again. A van will be there and several men will emerge to unlock the great doors and begin another day’s work of hacking, bashing and burning a hulk into many tons of scrap metal.
If you head for the hills there are better mists to enjoy. It’s just hazy enough on the track to dampen your coat and smear your glasses. It’s not cold on this October day and you know that in perhaps half an hour it will clear and you will reach the top and enjoy the view as you eat your picnic.
In the valley, hundreds of feet below, there is a blur of trapped mist. We cannot see the village in its wrapping. The people down there cannot see us. It gives all of us a sense of being in a special place as we start the descent.