I love snow!  I’ve missed the snow so much. The thrill of pulling back the curtains to an overnight transformation. The world outside, a bright white landscape heavy with pervading silence. More excitement, school was cancelled. It’s been too busy recently, too many things to check off the eternal to do list. The snow got in the way of the minutiae of life. I quietly said a little thank you to our snow day for this truce with my daily battle against time …

Bath was beautiful in the cold winter sunshine. With a day of freedom, L and I languidly explored the Roman baths, with their moist sulfurous air and holograms of naked Roman bathers, as A had warned ….

There is a tangled rose bush outside the window, twinkling with gold and silver droplets, its casing of ice now melted by the low hanging noon sun. A bird, perching on an arching stalk, startles into the air. The rose, for a moment, is a fountain of cascading sparks …

Happy New Year. Happy January. I love this time of year. I’m cherishing the quiet simpleness of January, after the greedy months of November and December which are stuffed with festivities, mince pies, gifts, Nativities and pantomimes. A colourful busy whirl, but this year it also came with head lice and colds and Covid and the year just sort of fizzled out …

I paced across the frozen field and turned into the dark and eerie woods which I call the “Dead Woods.” The ground is almost barren between the parallel lines of densely planted conifers. The trees creak and crack as you walk between them, otherwise the woods are too silent. They feel as though they are about to gobble you up …

Bristol, you are so very hip and edgy and fantastically different to how I remembered you, with your tired and gloomy 1950s and 1960s concrete buildings. But perhaps these depressing buildings provided a blank canvas for Bristol’s street artists? A space to make a political statement or throw some colour and creativity at the hulking greyness …

May, I look forward to enjoying you again next year. I hope I will be able to fully appreciate you. This year I was preoccupied. I didn’t notice the passing of the bluebells or the wild garlic. They quietly retreated to their underground world leaving tired nondescript leaves on the woodland floor. The nettles quickly grew tall and lanky. I had ambitious plans for all sorts of delicious foraged goodies, but I know I should congratulate myself for achieving a batch of nettle soup and a nettle quiche. Perhaps, when the girls are grown and all my hair is silvered, I’ll have a fridge full of nettle delights …

We drove along the final roads leading to our Barn home, travel weary and wistful from our time back in Seattle.  Yet as the lanes narrowed, we felt enveloped and embraced within the high hedgerows, now fully in leaf, the banks of the familiar road overflowing with frothy white flowers.  A lovely welcome home hug from the countryside …

Snippets of conversations, details of cherished friends and family’s lives, NW scenes of misty forests and islands set like green jewels in the grey sound are filling my sluggish jet-lagged mind. Over the past couple of days I have been returning to these memories, storing them away, retelling them to Jon and the girls, holding them tight. I am overflowing with these swirling memories and emotions from our two weeks in Seattle. It was a whirlwind of a trip, connecting with as many friends and family as possible, returning to favourite Seattle places and exploring new locations. I wish we could have seen everyone …

It was a fun day with these two goofballs!  Whenever we visit Nana and Grandpa in central MA we always march to the top of Mount Sugarloaf and make a pilgrimage to the overly scented Yankee Candle Factory where it’s always Christmas and snows indoors!

Two beautiful days in sleepy Manchester-by-the-Sea.  We explored the woodlands with A and the dog leading the way.  A trip to Singing Beach always ends with ice cream, no matter the temperature.  There was plenty of delicious downtime, for the girls to sprawl on the couch and make up for missing out on 2 years’ worth of Goldfish crackers while binge watching episodes of Friends.

Good morning Essex, MA! What a beautiful start to our first day back in the U.S. I love the coastline here, just north of Boston, with its sandy beaches, dry rocky forests and salt marshes. We were awake early, not quite on local time yet, and our rumbling tummies drove us out of the motel and straight into this gorgeous riverside scene …

Strangely, January is one of my favourite months. I love the peace that arrives with this cold month. The fun and frantic sparks of Xmas and New Year have sputtered out and a social quietness falls as we turn our focus inwards, to our roots, like the slumbering trees in the brown and naked countryside. The weather is capricious and I delight in the wild winds that can howl through the cracks in the windows or the mornings when I draw the curtains to a crystallized landscape. We celebrate the end of each short day with a warm glowing fire and the rich scent of burning cedar wraps around our little home. January feels like the quiet finale of the old year and February, with its white drifts of snow drops, yellow bursts of winter aconites, crescendoing bird song and brighter, longer days is the true start of the new year.

Over the past 3 days we explored and fell in love with Oxford.

And that sweet city with her dreaming spires,

She needs not June for beauty's heightening,

Lovely all times she lies ...

From Thyrsis, Matthew Arnold

The city was quiet; its students’ home for the Christmas holidays and the flow of tourists at their lowest ebb in these gloomy January days. Despite the cold greyness Oxford was enchanting with its narrow-cobbled streets, college buildings embellished with gargoyles, towers, spires, ornate windows and heavy wood doors, grassy meadows nestled between the arms of the Thames and Cherwell rivers and the stories left behind by the fascinating people who have called Oxford home.

It has been a quiet Christmas for us this year. In Seattle our winter breaks were filled with friends and families, Jon creating steaming fragrant curries in the kitchen which we would eat with friends in front of our fire. We would share our Christmas eve dinner with Jon’s brother and family and on Christmas Day join the big family gathering at Jon’s sister’s home, where at least 19 of us would squeeze around the table and her two large dogs would watch us wistfully through the glass paned doors. We would leave late at night with a small mountain of gifts for the girls and then all return the next day to eat left-overs of cioppino and turkey. Occasionally, the weather would deliver snow in the city over winter break, sometimes in time for Christmas, causing travel chaos and childhood bliss. Over the past couple of weeks each of us has wistfully cradled these fond memories …

Drizzle and fog didn’t deter me from gathering my family and taking them to the beach. I knew that it would be soul nourishment for us all, but I was almost dissuaded by the apathy they showed to this outing. As soon as we stepped onto the quiet stretch of sand I knew it was the right thing. A took off, sprinting along the edge of the water, leaping away at the last second as the foamy waves rushed at her feet. L and I strolled arm in arm searching for shells and Jon breathed and walked and laughed at A’s infectious delight. And we had him back, right there on the beach, after his miserable few weeks of Covid and intense work anxiety …

Eggnog is one of my favourite Christmassy drinks and it would bookend my winter days in Seattle. I’d stop by and treat myself to an eggnog latte from my local coffee shop after dropping the girls at school and at the end of the day I’d wrap myself up in a blanket and cradle a warm cup of eggnog with a hint of whisky. I didn’t grow up drinking eggnog. It is virtually extinct here in the U.K., even though eggnog evolved from posset, a British medieval remedy of warm milk, spices and alcohol. My first encounter with eggnog was in my early 20s during one of my early visits to Seattle. I was visiting my boyfriend and staying with his Mormon family over Christmas. I had resigned myself to the fact that this would be an alcohol-free holiday but hadn’t realized that tea and chocolate were also taboo …

Sunshine is streaming through our windows, filling our barn with warmth and light. Jon is enjoying a slow yoga practice in a square of light on the floor. I’m cradling a cup of tea, wondering where my meandering thoughts will take me. The fog of Covid is slowly receding from my mind and each day I feel a little clearer and brighter. Yet early this morning, I still wasn’t able to collect my thoughts and stay focused, and on this first day back at the school run after 10 days of quarantine, I realised halfway down the long driveway, that my youngest was coatless (on a morning where I had to scrape ice from the windows) and missing her school bag …

Do you suppose fairies hibernate throughout the wintry months, sleeping deeply in beds cushioned with moss, dandelion fluff and soft down feathers? Or perhaps they remain awake, sentinels for slumbering hedgehogs and dormice, ensuring that the cozy nests of their animal neighbours remain hidden. Once I would have asked these questions of my daughters and they would have gazed at me with bright eyes, considering, and the discussion would have continued until the winter activities of our local fairy population had been envisioned …

Autumn half-term consumed the final week of October and allowed a troublesome month to gracefully fade. October was still playing her game of contrasts throughout the week, but with no school and scheduled activities and quarantining I unwound and enjoyed the flow. Beautiful Autumn sunshine gave way to heavy rain and flooded roads. At times we were curled up in sunny nooks reading books and magazines. L sometimes vanished to the kitchen to toast pumpkin seeds from our carved Jack-o-Lanterns or sculpt pumpkin shaped marzipan treats, while A quietly played solo with her animal families in a square of sunlight. Other days were filled spending time with wonderful friends, sharing laughter and conversation. I never expected to show friends from Seattle the place where I grew up and for our girls to reunite with so much laughter in the woods I played in as a child …