Week 2/2024

Beautiful dawns | the final slice of Christmas cake | hazel catkins

Hello! I hope you have had a good week. Here we have been enjoying the low, slanting, golden sun, the winter-blue skies and the silvery frost. Today the mud was so frozen that the dogs paws came back clean from their walk - a tiny island of ‘not having to wash their feet’ in the sea of mud that is autumn, winter and early spring around here. It waits for me…but not today.

We had a bumper load of comments last week, so apologies that not all of them have made it into the weekly poem. Some general themes emerged: new socks (me too), bird song, and a tug-of-war between the brusque and efficient clearing away of Christmas and the clinging to it until the very last moment, with some of you sort of managing both. Although the poem is long, please read carefully - there are a couple of surprises in there. Here’s your Week 1:

Sitting inside at the breakfast table and watching the snow fall

Copying birthdays into my new diary

The spicy, soapy, honey-sweet scents of wintersweet, winter box and daphne filling the cold air in my winter garden

A robin singing in the dark

Taking the decorations down, eating leftover stollen

Enjoying reading January from my Almanac (Go to the top of the class! A prize! etc…- Ed. x)

Leaving the cinema on a dark winter’s evening to be greeted by swirling snow

Three moose right near the cabin, healthy and plump, as there has been little snow yet, though it’s coming. All the logs torn apart by bears looking for ants. Deep diving into the darkness and quiet to come

Venus dazzling so beautifully in the cloudless early morning sky

In the dusk, catching the glimpsed frames of people’s lives through their windows - twinkling lights still up, a row of lit candles, someone with the the tv on, someone clearing the dining table

An icy new years day swim at Clevedon marine lake, followed by chattering teeth and hot chocolate in the car

Spotting snowdrops in the park and a yellow crocus too

Making a Galette des Rois for 12th Night

The low sun in the afternoon hours turning my kitchen to gold

Removing most of the decorations, but keeping the greenery up until Candlemas Eve

Marmalade making

More birds appearing in the garden: robins, blackbirds, magpies, crows

Leaving some star-shaped fairly lights in the living room for some bright winter twinkle

Walking on squelchy, muddy, waterlogged ground

A blanket of darkness still in the morning as I resist getting up for work.

My garlics poking through, and the seagulls back on the roof

The teeniest stretching of the day

Making plans for planting this year in my notebook, which always makes me happy in the post-Christmas come down

The rock doves beginning their first steps toward canoodling, on the roof top of our shed

Enjoying new woolly socks during walks

Sweep, hoover, unblock hoover, repeat. Still finding tree needles everywhere

Lichens and moss on the trees

The last performance of the panto on NYE, which was broad and glittery fun, and buying up the yellow-stickered mince pies in every shop

White egrets keeping the ponies company, new cosy socks in old wellies

The train meandering through flooded fields

The first whiff of wild garlic

Watching geese land in the spent corn field during the sunset

Lingering in kayaks at sunset to marvel at the mysterious world of the tropical mangroves

Snow in the forecast, a hearty vegetable stew

Foxes playing in garden

A V-formation of flying geese overhead at 3pm each time I've been out walking, chasing the sun from east to west. I can tell the time based on their movements

Stunning blue-purple-tangerine sunrises on my quiet morning runs, where it feels like I’m the only one out there to see them

Isn’t that wonderful? I was particularly excited by the moose and bears and the mangrove swamp kayaking. All in the same week! What a world.

Here’s my Week 2:

Beautiful dawns

With these clear and crisp January days, have come some beautiful dawns. I can’t say I’m noticing the lightening of the mornings yet. Every day I am up in the dark, and kind of hanging around for it to get light enough that I don’t get scared in the big dark park. But this is the pay off.

The final slice of Christmas cake

I am not a great one for New Year, New Me but in January I do at least try to stop eating quite as much cake and chocolates as I do over the Christmas period. The Christmas cake always hangs on longer than all the rest, and I think, well, just a sliver wont hurt…with a nice cup of tea while I work. I ate my final sliver this week. New Me incoming.

Hazel catkins

They are out, they are dangling.

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That’s it from me. Please buy my 2024 Almanac if you haven’t already - it is a marvellous accompaniment to the year that now lies ahead of us - but most importantly please do leave your comments below. What have you spotted/done/drunk/eaten/made/etc…that has made this week feel particularly ‘this week’?