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.
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’?
I ate the last slice of Christmas cake last night, while watching The Traitors 😁 very "early January" energy I think.
I like winter but must admit, having to get up in the dark every morning for the first week back at work has been a bit of a struggle. Slow, dragging days, trying to get myself up to speed. I got my blanket scarf out for the first time this winter, soft and smelling of lavender.
Your writing about lovely dawns has got James MacMillan's 'O Radiant Dawn' stuck in my head, which is no bad thing 🌄
Gratefully falling onto the little pots of tete a tete narcissus in the supermarket, happily cramming them and freshly emerging hyacinths into my trolley.
Enjoying the dry bright cold days after endless rain.
Excitedly glimpsing bursts of flaming sunrises and sunsets.