I would put up a photo but a word picture will have to do. There is a dusting of white over the spindly branches of the apple tree and on the roof of the garden shed, a thin but properly visible amount of snow under the grass, a powder-blue sky and everything lit up by sun. New-year-resolution morning writing regime will begin soon but my visitor goes to Scotland tomorrow and hasn’t yet properly seen the village (as I live on the edge of it).
The Christmas tree is still up, with all the lights and decorations and I’m not taking it down yet because today is epiphany and we are having a small gathering in order to melt the pewter horseshoes that Icemaiden has brought from Finland, so as to get a sense of what might be coming to us in the year ahead; and we will be drinking the champagne she brought with her.
January is feeling quite auspicious so far, so much so that I had a peek at the previous Januaries recorded in my last three MsLexia diaries (“for Women who write”) and they had a grim, hard feeling to them. It helps, of course, that no-one is down with flu and that I am not gearing up to the imminent beginning of a term’s teaching which, though I did love it, took most of my strength to do.
I love the cold weather. It feels, strangely, healthy. Not so strange, perhaps, for the ground seems to need a proper cold snap in order for things to grow properly later on, and we are here too on the same ground, growing, unfolding, putting out new shoots.
6 comments:
Happy New Year to you !
Keep hoping and hang in there,thx for sharing ...
Freezing big time here too,
Love, Joni
I love the cold weather too, and it does feel healthy. Healthier than all that drizzly rubbish. I just had a walk round for a couple of hours and it was very refreshing - gloves off, and allowing the hands to tingle, go a little numb, hurt, and then right themselves so that the circulation is pumping round and the cold feels like no more than a waft of fine fresh air.
word ver = larkingo - clearly no poet is beyond criticism...
I forgot to ask, you smelt vanilla in the air in 2008? Was it real?
Hello Joni (Mitchell, by any chance?) - thanks for stopping by. Happy new year.
Trousers!, poor old Larkin, already having enough probs what with his mum and dad and all. We were all larking around tonight, melting pewter horseshoes, is what I think it was telling you.
You're right, Kahless, I did. And it was real, but it was an aroma, nothing very solid - whereas this year - er- let me think about this. I'll get back to you :)
Happy New Year to you, Signs, and to Anna also. I just knew she had been by here on her way to Cardiff - must have passed right by my door close to the (old) Severn bridge - the trees are sparkling with frost and the stars icy bright.
And I thought I was the last in the land, certainly in my village which is a very tidy one, to take down the tree. It remained for this epiphanic day and we have only just closed the boxes on the baubles and angel, but not before the three kings had made their way from the CD player across the room to the ancient moss-covered stable.
Lovely to hear your woven stories, yours and Anna's.
Happy new year, Nicola, I've just looked out of the window thinking to see everything melted but there is still some white and sparkle. Good.
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