Week 3

A forced pot; hazel catkins (earrings stage); primus rosa

Hello, how has your week been? Here I have been loving the return of the frosty mornings and the joy of the endless mud being momentarily frozen into hard clumps that I can just tromp over. I *know* it is still there. I know I will be schlepping and slurping through it again at even the slightest raise in temperature. But it’s been a nice break in my very sodden dog walking life.

The dogs like it too…

Not my dog, just a random joyful passing dog enjoying the frost

As ever, here is the drill: I write about three things I have noticed that have felt particularly seasonal, now, of this moment about my last week, and then you tell me yours. And we kick off with a roundup of the highlights from your comments last week, which I started doing because they were so magical, and which have never let me down since. You will remember that last week it was raining everywhere and we were all a bit glum. How quickly we forget! Here are your Week 2 highlights:

A marshmallow sunset with wind whipping deep blue, pink and indigo clouds across the sky; noticing the light creeping under the curtains in the morning a little earlier; enormous waves crashing on the beach; zingy green shoots poking from black earth; clumps of snowdrops along the base of the hedge; gusts of wind rattling the shutters, and the whole house howling, rustling and creaking; a walk through thick, squelchy mud and then spotting a white fallow deer; daffodils from the supermarket in a mini-champagne bottle from NYE; the moon shining through wispy clouds over Paris from the kitchen window; the tiny bright yellow globes of aconites popping up all over the garden; the crows of Vancouver gathering at dusk to fly out of the city to roost, stretched out across the sky; the postie mentioning that they can smell the Christmas box (Sarcococca) right down the road; new garlic shoots coming up; Cedar season in Texas (the very worst for pollen); a bathing garden robin; a soundscape of rattling branches and squelchy mud; a roaring log fire and a half-completed jigsaw in a Welsh cottage; feeling proud and smug that the tax return was done in July…; breathing in the rotting leaves and ever-growing moss and darkly smiling, deep inside.

I particularly love that last one. But thank you all. You bring such poetry every week.

Here’s my Week 3.

A forced pot

This is why we do it isn’t it? We pot up spring bulbs and force them and bring them into the house not for Christmas but for these days afterwards, when clumps of spring bulbs dancing in the breeze are somewhere over there on the horizon but really a little too far off yet for any comfort. I have taken so many pictures of this potful, with sun streaming through it, with hail hitting the windows, but this one feels like the right one, against gloomy, dramatic skies and a dull garden. It smells of spring but not in that knock-you-out way hyacinths do, just light, a hint: it’s coming. Perfect.

Hazel catkins (earrings stage)

Yes yes you are quite right, shame on me, this is my second go at hazel catkins but I honestly chose this over several other possibilities because its so different to the first. This is the first year I have really observed them, how they emerge like little curled lambs tails and then sort of twist as they elongate and then finally…look like this. Like expensive earrings. I particularly love the way they provide such strong horizonal marks in a landscape that is otherwise entirely made of woody tangles. Such style, such grace. I was also pleased that you can really see the little pinky-red female flower in this picture too, open and ready to catch the passing pollen that will waft by on the breeze, and the point from which autumn’s hazelnuts will emerge.

Primus rosa

And finally: the first primrose in my garden! It is looking a bit battered and half eaten but here it is. If that isn’t a herald of spring I don’t know what is.

Now over to you. What have you noticed this week? And please do let us know where in the world you are (even - especially - if you’re just down the road).