Week 8
Snowdrops in the green
Hello! I hope you have had a good week. Here the rain and gloom just continues on. Little streams at the woods that are dry all year are gushing. Everything is mud. And now it’s cold too. But the trees in the next street have started blossoming - always just a little too early, but it feels hopeful and a very strong sign that this can’t, actually, last forever.
This is our weekly community post in which I ask the question: what was seasonal about this week for you? What did you do/see/hear/bake/smell etc…that felt like ‘this moment in the year? I tell you mine and then you tell me yours.
All of this is in service of us all tapping in more fully to the seasons and how they change, and the richness that noticing it can bring to our lives, and to that end it is still not too late to get yourself a copy of my 2026 almanac! Which has very much the same aim.
Right, let’s get into it. I’ll go first:
Snowdrops in the green
I do not have snowdrops in my garden and every year I feel left out when everyone else here starts talking about spotting their first snowdrop and I haven’t seen a single one. Every year I intend to do something about it and every year I don’t…until this year! I am sure you all know this but you have to buy snowdrops ‘in the green’ rather than as dry bulbs, because they are woodland plants of damp places, rather than originating in places where the soil is baked every summer. This is I think the reason I never get around to it - my head is not in a blub planting place at this time of year. Anyway I did it! 500 bulbs, around 250 of which are now planted in my back garden, and 250 of which will soon be planted in my front garden. Next February I will be rich in snowdrops.
That’s all from me, now over to you: what’s your seasonal thing for this week? Please share in the comments below.
I visit the temple on the Lunar New Year!
There are offerings of flowers, candles little bowls of food and fruit, we light incense and pray for our ancestors
Lunch is sweet sticky rice, vegetables and tofu beautifully cooked and enjoyed together with each of us receiving a ‘lucky’ coin
Welcome to the Year of the Fire Horse!
A ladybird on the windowsill, a swathe of daffodils outside the pub, and too many pancakes scoffed with us all stood around the kitchen, taking turns to flip.