Yesterday another hard frost laid a glamorous mantle over the mouldering leaves and shaggy lawn. As I shut up the shed in the near dark the frost had crept back silver in the half light giving a slight crunch underfoot.
Today a big gold sun is just appearing over a line of trees having been officially up for 29 minutes accompanied by a strengthening south westerly wind. Green world is emphatically back.
We don’t have gently lowing cattle round here, this morning I can hear them shouting, complaining and bellowing more than grumpily as they do, the wonky Donkey in the village is sawing away, a distant cockerel is welcoming the sun and a couple of ducks are waak waaking in the waterlogged field.
Plants have had a few more rounds with The Frost and look further battered, more have succumbed or fully retreated. In hollows and by hedges plants didn’t see the sun all day and the frost didn’t lift. I tidied up my frozen auriculas, pulling off rotten leaves with numbing fingers, the sun fleetingly graced them in late afternoon.
I savour the still, light falling moments on clear cold days in the run up to the shortest day. Last night I stood under an ash tree, stubby twigs with arthritic black knobbed joints stood sharply defined against the last of a pale darjeeling tea coloured sunset. I was hoping like last Saturday to see a tawny owl swoop low across the field, but not last night.
In the garden the Jackdaws are back having been out in the country since early summer. They are hanging around the chicken run as are the Magpies who are getting cockier again as the food sources get fewer. Yesterday there was a squawk of Blackbird alarm by the replenished bird feeders and the Sparrowhawk came through, unsuccessful I think.
I set-to on the Merryweather Damson planted nearly two years ago, taking off lower branches and tipping back top branches, it already looks taller with its skirts lifted a little. I had a couple of damsons this year, more flavourful than an insipid Victoria Plum, just that little hint of pleasurable sourness even at their ripest.
Trees can be scary. From a not too distant perspective the old apple trees which have had major butchery at some point fairly recently are now covered with water shoots, they are getting towards their last probably, but are familiar and friendly. The closer you get to the trees with pruning in mind and look up into the network of naked branches, the higher the trees become and the likelihood of being able to get at most branches without a ladder recedes. Now the leaves are off one of the apple trees I can see climbing rose The Garland has clambered higher than I had expected, sprays of small hips adding a faint air of festive jollity. A mole has had a field day running rings around the tree under the cover of a worm attracting hazel leaf carpet and rotting apples.
Last year the birds left me plenty of holly berries, not so this year, suddenly they’ve all gone, none for me.
This time next week it will be the shortest day – the year turns again.