Promises

Part of the point of our long stay away from home is to bridge the gap between warm, profligate autumn and the excitement of greening shoots and early flowers as the natural world detects the turning of the year. November light (and rain!) on Midlands clay soils doesn't always lift the spirits; reflected from a Celtic sea, it acquires energy and vitality, inspiring confidence that the darkness will come and it will go, and the energy of bright days will return to us. It's why we visit the ancient stones on these western shores: you can reach out to the people who put them there because they had the same thought: the gods have not deserted us

Today, I slid the car sideways down the drive. I failed to persuade the same car up a snow-covered grassy slope. Bolts on doors are frozen closed. Some tardy and ill-timed beekeeping included frozen fingers on icy hive roofs. Frigid water drops from everything. Grey skies and mist obscure the horizon. The only other worthwhile picture I took all day was delicate snow crystals clinging to sprigs of rosemary.

But when I look again: the rosemary is in flower; so is the viburnum. I have little doubt that bulb shoots are hidden below the snow. Life is already anticipating the spring to come. And I open the fridge and here is this. Frosty, like the rosemary, because they have been frozen, but a vivid reminder of the crazy summer when they thrived outside the kitchen door. Did we really have days when it was too hot to go outside? Will hot, ripening days return? I know it is true, but I still can't quite accept it. I must trust the flowers and the bulbs and the voices of the stones