Big beautiful February poem!

It’s the end of the month and you know what that means…it’s time for our inaugural big end of the month poem! Thank you SO much for continuing to contribute to this while I am a little less closely involved as I write The Almanac 2025 (find The Almanac 2024 here). I’m so delighted with your response to me taking a different approach to these weekly posts. Thank you! I feel wonderfully supported by this gorgeous community.

So a quick re-cap in case you are new. Every week I post something I have noticed that felt particularly ‘this week in the year’. It might be a flower, a sound, a recipe, a gathering, the quality of the light, a seasonal meal…really anything…and then you do the same. At the end of the month I compile and curate your comments into a big old list of magical moments that between them provide the flavour of the month just past. With the short month and my absence one week there are only two weeks worth this week, but the difference was so noticeable that I have kept them separate, so do make sure you read through to the second week and notice how springy it is in comparison.

Anyway, without further ado, here is…

FEBRUARY

The first lamb born in the field behind my cottage

Watching with mixed feelings as the magpies build an impressively large nest in my silver birch

Surprisingly clear star-filled night skies here in Birmingham

The beautiful ploughed lines in the land in the South Downs

A murmuration half hidden in the mist

Hellebores delicately blooming in shady spots

The plum blossom was out on the marshes and I brought in a couple of twigs to celebrate longer days coming

Taken by surprise by the first Iris reticulata - how vibrant the blues are

Three generations and a dog snuggling in one bed

Snowdrops - at the beginning of last week just a couple but now everywhere

The sun's ascent a little higher each day, pushing away winter to make room for spring

Snowdrops lining a whole road, the grass verges between road and pavement completely covered

The snow muffling the noise of the traffic and trains from the nearby road and railway lines

Scorching heat in Perth, Western Australia: bright crimson bougainvillea, blue plumbago flowers and hibiscus all in bloom

The wild garlic and arum putting their very first leaves up

Boulder, Colorado and we are blessed each winter with graceful and majestic Canadian geese. I came upon a flock grazing on what grass they could find after a snowfall

Made a Beef Wellington while it’s still cold outside

The first celandine, so bright and sunny and shiny and a reminder of that other big bright shiny thing what I haven't seen so much of lately

A lone and surprisingly early camellia flower

My snowdrops surviving having 3 skips, a Hippo bag, and garden rubbish on top of where they usually pop up

Snowdrops, crocuses, pink forsythia, primroses and so much green

Sparkling raindrops on bare branches. Tiny jewels in the low sun

Orion bright in the early evening sky to accompany me on my daily walk

The hazel trees heavy with catkins here in North Devon. Birdsong is louder by the day.

California, and acacias are in full yellow bloom, cherries and plums are just beginning to open up their pink and white petals

Getting home while it's still light

Rooks busy nest building in the tall trees near the house.

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Frogs and tulips

Awakening with the Dawn chorus, in particular a blackbird’s solo

Alder catkins lying all over the path like fluffy luminous green/brown caterpillars

Blackbirds chasing each other, dunnocks in and out from under the hedge and the return of the sound of geese flying overhead each morning back to the canal

Pancakes with homemade rhubarb compote

Outside without a coat, and greeted by a wave of perfume from a sarcococca by the front door

The frogs feeling the valentines vibe and getting busy...every pond and puddle in the woods is brimming with spawn

Listening to the birdsong in the garden, and realising I was also hearing frogs croaking in the pond for the first time this year

The sun has risen high enough to shine over the roofs and into my small slice of garden and I have sat outside in it twice

Drinking a blood orange shrub, looking out over a fresh snowfall

My old cat lying in the sun again

Tulips and daffodils growing an inch each day. Magpies squabbling in the trees

Morning coffee outside for the first time this year, wrapped in a blanket and with a view of a still snow covered front yard

Visiting Wisley and oh my goodness, the crocuses - the richness of the purples and the egg yolk yellows

Making blood orange curd for pancakes

A very crunchy crumble made with bright pink forced rhubarb. Another batch of marmalade, and - my favourite- blood oranges sliced for dessert or breakfast

A jewel filled park, last week it was yellow crocuses, this week the white and purple have come to join them along with new clumps of snow drops, heads heavily drooping with rain drops.

Red wings

Making a Valentines/spring wreath for our front door. A heart shaped willow wreath with a snowdrop kokedama attached to the bottom, some catkins and yellow winter jasmine

A toad crossing the car park

The blackthorn that I pass every day bursting into flower overnight

A spring clear out on a grand scale

Raking the lawn then sitting outside with mid morning coffee for the first time this year, finally able to imagine spring and the garden reawakening

Stinging cold wind, but also a quality to the sunlight that feels springlike

The first honeybees of the year suckling on the snowdrops

What a change! I normally edit for repetition but the first coffee of the year outdoors felt so momentous that I let several slip through.

I hope you have enjoyed this new way of doing things. It is certainly suiting me well just at the moment. A quick note for paid subscribers though: I am aware that I am not currently keeping all of my promises on this substack - the combination of a death in the family and writing the almanac has kind of knocked me sideways I’m afraid - and so I have paused payments until I can get fully back on the horse. Thank you for sticking with me. I wont be long. In the meantime these weekly posts will continue, but everything else will be back soon.

Remember, this is not the place to put your weekly comments. There will be a new post tomorrow, the 1st March, to gather all of your comments for this week, and that will add in towards the Big Beautiful March poem - it’s imprecise I know, but the best way I can think to do it.

Thank you again for all your beautiful observations and words, and I’ll see you tomorrow where we will begin working towards the next poem x