Week 49
The Christmas box down from the loft; white out; the cake
The most stunning walk…more of which later
This week here in the south west UK we had a couple of stunning days of frozen mist and hoar frost and then… were plunged back into soggy days. Slightly oddly, those two days brought out in me a flurry of Christmas prep. I strung up lights, baked, bought the tree. It jolted me into action. And then it rained and I stopped. Come back beautiful frosty weather!
Before we kick off with our regular weekly post charting the minutiae of the week, I want to let you know about a couple of things coming up for my paid subscribers. I have just started putting together my Midwinter playlist, which I am really excited about. Lots of you loved my gentle, folky, but still really very spooky All Hallows playlist, and used it as part of marking Samhain and Hallowe’en in your own ways, and I am hoping that my Midwinter playlist will play a similar role in your Midwinter and Christmas celebrations. There are SO many traditional and modern folk songs for Christmas that I am spoilt for choice. Watch this space.
Also around the middle of the month I will be making my monthly catch up video for paid subscribers in which we delve deeper into the energy and atmosphere of the month. November’s Catch Up sparked a really thoughtful and moving discussion between us all in the comments, and gave me a glimpse of a direction that this community might move in.
If either of those things sound like something you might fancy then do join us by upgrading to a paid subscription. Your subscriptions really help me to donate time to making this a lovely place to be.
Now to business. In this post we chart the little and the grand things that made the past week feel like ‘this week in the year’, and we begin with a round up of your comments of last week (you can join in for next week by pressing the ‘comment’ button at the bottom of this post. All welcome).
Here’s your Week 48:
A shooting star on a frosty Donegal night with the smell of turf fires in the air
The smell of the freshly cut tree in the car coming home
Rugging-up horses
The Northern Lights dancing in the sky over my local beach and the full mourning moon and her bright companion, Jupiter
The calendar filling up with commitments
Returning my fall leaf garland to storage and replacing with greens, tiny white lights, cyclamen, protea, grey green eucalyptus, and as many candles as I could find
The cosy warmth provided by layers of quilts over linen sheets
A moon halo, which held Jupiter within its ring
A carpet of russet beech and oak leaves, silvered by frost
Opening my Angela Harding ‘Midnight Fox’ advent calendar
Fragrant witch hazel in bloom at the corner of a friend’s yard
Our first post-pandemic annual cheese and wine party
Winter is measured by the intensity of sea swims - the temperature of the sea dropped markedly this week
An evening cross country ski trek down old farm lane and woodland trails, under moonlight
The Christmas snack table has opened for business [I think we need to know more about this ‘Christmas snack table’ - Ed.]
Big, fluffy flakes hurrying to the ground to add to the quiet, covered landscape. The walks in the forest so silent now, except for the sound of my footsteps: no birds chirping, no insects humming and buzzing, only the silent snow
My holiday lights and the full moon making the dark bright
Soup making whilst practicing carol singing for a concert
Lighting fires and telling stories into the flames then striding out into the flame-coloured leaves, savouring the colours of a true winter
Foraging for fresh foliage to make my Christmas wreath
Finding frosted spiders webs on every gate and fence, glowing white and sparkling in the low sun
The cats playing in the new "Christmas tree forest"
You are all so very festive! It’s gorgeous. I need to catch up. Speaking of which…here’s my Week 49:
The Christmas box down from the loft
For a long time this was a series of carrier bags, shoe boxes and other cardboard boxes. One box was stuffed with wrapped baubles, there was a plastic bag of tinsel, a tower of boxes of lights and so on. About two years ago we did the grown-up thing and bought one massive lidded plastic box, which is very sensible and keeps everything together, but is not very charming.
I find Christmas preparation quite overwhelming, and I have decided that one answer is to start early and to do it tiny bit by tiny bit. So I would never buy the tree, put up the tree, and decorate the tree all on one day, for instance. Or get the box down and put up the decorations. My husband has chronic fatigue, and I think this step-by-step way through the big things has come out of this. We pace ourselves, always, and that way we (sometimes) get around to (some of) the things. Anyway, the box is down! The tree is in a bucket in the garden! The outside lights are up! And that will do for now.
White out
I looked out last Saturday morning and the world was all fog, and I took myself and the dogs up to the Downs, which sometimes - despite its name - is high up enough to rise above a fog, to quite spectacular effect. Well very much the opposite on Saturday, the fog just got thicker and thicker as we went higher. It was an astonishing walk. I had to keep the dogs nearby as they really could have just vanished off into the mist. I navigated by the sound of the road, though I could not see it. In the more open parts of the Downs I had moments of total sensory depravation, like being lost in a white out. When I worked my way back to where I thought the car was I was…I was way off.
Plus everything was coated in iced fog, like this. Beautiful.
The cake
And I made the cake, a week late, but done, and a triumph I’m sure you’ll agree. The recipe is Nigel Slater’s from The Christmas Chronicles (of which I know this substack’s readers are fans) and I’ve made it before and it’s a beauty. I am always smug once I’ve made the cake.
That’s it from me.
My customary reminder that Christmas is REALLY coming now and my Almanac 2024 makes a beautiful little stocking filler: give the gift of a year’s full moons, meteor showers, folklore and feasts.
And my other customary reminder to please leave your comments below. What have you noticed/done/eaten/smelt/made that has felt particularly ‘this week’ this week? I can’t wait to read them x
"Glögg" with raisins and almonds at the last swedish class of this term.
Finally I can add mine to this already gorgeous mix - I’m sitting with advent candle lit, calming diffuser going with gingerbread spice oil ( it’s Tisserand so “ proper” not nasty fake stuff) and carols playing softly. We had our first mince pies made with my homemade mincemeat last night. Tree is up with lights but no decorations yet - slowly does it! And a card letter arrived from a cousin in Canada I only hear from at this time of year - and with it a flood of precious memories from our childhoods before they emigrated in the mid 50’s when I was very small. Seasonal nostalgia - a very potent, heart stirring thing!