Tag: winter

Winter sleep

New snow blankets a wall

which is the summer home

of one of the garden slow worms.

And right now, somewhere deep

in hidden parts of the garden

slow worms are curled up,

hibernating.

Do they switch off like a computer

one cool day in autumn

and switch back on in spring,

unaware of the passing of time?

Or do they slumber,

conscious of the seeping cold,

burrowing further below rocks,

pulling leaves over like a duvet

before sinking deeper into winter sleep?

And do they dream?

Signs of the light returning

The first few

white buds

of snowdrops

emerge

from frozen ground,

as lengthening

hazel catkins bring

a touch of yellow

to the hedgerows.

The evening stretches out

just a little,

and on those days when

winter cold recedes

slightly,

the birds sing

a different song,

louder,

livelier,

a prelude to spring.

It takes a while after the shortest day before I start to notice the light returning, reflected in the first few snowdrops and the changes in birdsong.

Snow, frost and silvery light have been a feature of my local walks recently. Now we are back in lockdown I’m walking the same local routes daily, and feeling grateful to live in such a beautiful part of the world.

A glimpse of the wild

A snipe walks

between

sleeping ducks,

visible against the water,

a master of camouflage

against the reeds.

The winter sun

breaks through and

lights this perfect moment.

The pintail and teal sleep on,

turning slowly with the breeze

as we watch,

fill ourselves with

their colour and movement,

and take away our own small glimpse

of the wild.

–

Its been a bit grey, wet and windy here recently. Today was sunnier so I visited the local nature reserve. Sunday afternoon and it was busy. I started wondering if the birds have a sense of being watched by so many people. Probably not. But I love how we all have our own experience of the birds, of the low winter sun lighting up the reeds, glinting off the water, the fresh air in our lungs. How we take the memories, the images of the birds in the sunshine, and how we carry that light within us through the dark wet grey January days. We return to our indoor weekday lives accompanied by a glimpse of the wild.

Into the darkness

I am slipping between seasons.

I can sense the afterglow of summer; flowers are blooming, the sun is still warm on my face. Then in another moment I am tumbling towards winter.

The darkness draws me forward.

There is still time after work to dodge the rain showers and squeeze in a walk to the estuary, yet by the time I have finished my evening meal there is blackness outside the window.

Winter guests are arriving along with the first frosts. The geese are back and countless small birds enliven the garden with their flittering flocks. I’m still waiting for a glimpse of redwing, or fieldfare. Tasty berries await their return.

Sometimes it’s still just about warm enough to take my cup of tea to the bench in the front garden, but I spend less time there now.

Of course, there is still work to do outside, weeding and pruning and such, which will build up body heat and make time spent outside feel good. But the mooching, the gazing, the simply being, the doing nothing, the outdoor tai chi practice; the season for all that is ebbing away.

And so the true owners of the garden come to the fore. The blackbirds, robins, wrens, dunnocks, tits, goldcrests, song thrushes, the mice and voles, the squirrels, the spiders and slugs, snails and countless invertebrates. All those beings who spend the entire of the day and the night outside, however cold or wet or grey it gets.

I watch a blackbird probing the lawn for insects and I suddenly realise that the garden belongs to all of them, not to me. They depend on it for survival, I just appear outside occasionally and they watch me with caution until I am gone.

The darkness approaches with relentless speed.

I fight it, just like every year. I wish it wasn’t happening. I dread the clocks changing, darkness before I even leave the office.

I’m not sure when this started. As a child winter and dark evenings just happened, that was just how life was. It didn’t bother me at all.

The winter started with our annual end of October half term Lake District family holiday, an old cottage with no central heating, roasting the chestnuts that we collected in the woods over the open fire, cold bedrooms, huddling under the sheets with hot water bottles. Probably my favourite holiday of the year. Back home, the house was usually warm, and the dark months were punctuated by brightness: Halloween, bonfire night, Christmas.

And I’ve been wondering when I learned to dislike the darkness that comes with winter, the short days, the endless grey and the damp cold.

A run of grey days can hang over me like a bad mood. Then, the sun comes out and everything is OK. Colours come to life. The world around me sparkles. This is perhaps not a good attitude to have developed given that I live in rainy, grey, beautiful north west England.

And yet. Every year there comes a point when I stop fighting the seasons, when I start to see the long dark evenings as something to treasure.

A space.

Often, there is not much to do. The working day is over. There are no little jobs to do in the garden, because it’s dark outside. I read. I binge watch tv programmes.

A little idea arrives in my head, about seasons and the approaching darkness. I go outside and reacquaint myself with the stars. Back inside it’s warm. I sit down and I start writing.

We are just at the beginning. There are months of this creative, enveloping darkness ahead. I could choose to welcome it.

What do dark evenings and approaching winter mean to you?