Monday 19 November 2018

Winter begins

I'm sitting here writing this in my south facing conservatory. Today it is far from warm in here, I haven't got the central heating on and outside heavy grey clouds race across the sky, pushed along by a gusty and cold ENE wind. Added to that are frequent light showers of icy rain, it's the 19th November and winter is finally beginning to appear on the horizon, made all the more obvious by flocks of Fieldfares, fresh in from Scandinavia and feasting on the hedgerow berries.
I've been out in the garden briefly today, digging a piece of border and pruning a Cotoneaster shrub, but as a whole, the garden is almost pruned, dug and mulched as I want it and ready for it's winter sleep. Let's face it, today is one of those days when it's simply better being inside, looking out, drinking a glass of something, reading something or just just mulling over what the last eleven months have been like. 
So I've been sitting here,  reading a newly published book by Matthew Dennison entitled "Eternal Boy - The life of Kenneth Grahame " who of course wrote "Wind in the Willows, and was captivated by a passage in it that seemed to express the way that days such as today, should end.
Kenneth Grahame and a friend had been walking in the countryside on one cold weekend. "we came home happy and tired, bought some chops and fetched a huge jug of beer from the pub. We cooked our dinner over the open wood fire, then great chunks of cheese, new bread, great swills of beer, pipes, bed and heavenly sleep". Oh yes, the summer is a time of very long and busy days, with short, hot nights, but the winter offers the reverse - rising late, a brief day and the snugness of giving in to lethargy, early darkness and the comfort of a long winter's night wrapped in blankets, planning next year and re-living this year.

16 comments:

  1. That is a warming passage of text that you selected Derek. Winter isn't that bad when put like that.

    ReplyDelete
  2. A lovely post. Coincidentally the first wintry weather of this back end over here too! And, it's best to stay in but I had to go out on errands. Didn't forget the beer on the way back though.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It is cool here, too, relatively speaking, and we have been doing our version of winter lethargy. I do enjoy an occasional day or two getting snuggled in with heavenly sleep under warm blankets.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thank you all three of you. I guess in our different ways we are all beginning to settle into that lovely, snuggly feeling of being indoors and warm and cosy as winter creeps up on us all.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Derek what a delightfully written post - you have hit just the right note for our first wintry spell. Lucky you with the fieldfares - I haven't seen a single one yet and I love them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Fieldfares have been around here in large flocks for some weeks Pat

      Delete
  6. One of the many joys that retirement will bring is the thought that on those wretched dark dank days, I will be able snuggle down and absent my self from the madness of the daily commute. I can't wait.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're dead right Sally. Nothing like looking out onto a bleak, cold day and knowing you don't have to go out in it to work.

      Delete
  7. I'd say that passage just about sums the winter up, for us anyway, we are retired and that's just how I see it.
    We used to get flocks of field fare on our college playing field but I haven't seen any for a few years, I wonder why. I am in Brighton on the south coast.
    Briony
    x

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So nice to hear from you Briony and a real shame, and surprising, that you are not seeing Fieldfares, as I've said above, they appear plentiful here in North Kent.

      Delete
  8. Co-incidentally, it is cold here as well with snow and flooding in the South Island. Just as summer seemed to be here it all changed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good to hear from you Susan. My partner lives in Surrey and last year her daughter moved out to NZ to live with her NZ born partner. They live in the North Island at a place called Tauranga.

      Delete
  9. In my younger days I never liked autumn or winter, but I appreciate them now, but still look forward to spring. I've not noticed the Fieldfares here.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Can't say as I appreciate autumn and winter Dave, I'm a warm weather person.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Winter is that time of the year when I wish I was still mostly working from home, as I used to do for 1 1/2 years. Having to face the cold, even wrapped up warmly, is still a challenge I rather take at my own time and not dictated by clients' expectations.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Going out in the really cold weather is never something I really enjoy and yet every early morning I'm still out voluntarily walking the marshes with my dog, counting birds. It was 1 degree as arrived there this morning.

    ReplyDelete