The land that came in from the cold

Winter is my favourite season.

As the days get shorter and the temperature drops, nature becomes more subtle. But as the cold air prickles your skin and makes your eyes water, the outside world also seems more immediate.

Trees shed their leaves so we can see their elegant structures, pocked with numerous buds and scars. Buds protect fragile tissues, full of the promise of spring growth whilst the scars are remnants of previous year's buds, memories of the past. I still remember receiving my first pair of glasses and staring amazed at the branching leafless arms above. For the first time in years I saw their delicacy and complexity, silhouetted clearly against the skies. This rediscovery was like opening a cupboard to find a cherished but forgotten treasure.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia commons

This years unseasonable warmth has brought none of the frosts that make some of nature's delicate structures more obvious and beautiful. There are no frozen spider webs, in their filigree beauty. Their fine strands and simple structure offer surprising strength, holding many times their own weight in ice. 

This year snow has not covered the world in a frozen blanket, obscuring what grows below and revealing what moves above. Instead, York has been surrounded by a patchwork of flooded fields, so a fortnight ago, I headed north to see snow.

As I reached Durham, I realised that I was too late, the early morning signs of the wild were covered by the coarse boot marks of other explorers, or otherwise lost to a slight thaw. There was no sense of discovery, no delicate blackbird footprints, no chance to guess at the marks of mammals. Instead there was just a shabby, half-thawed white and brown, an opportunity missed.

Image courtesy of NASA

Yesterday, as I travelled south for Christmas, I was  astounded to see daffodils flowering and lawns that have carried on growing, long past when they should have stopped. Is this the same country where recently an ice covered satellite photo etched itself on the public conciousness? The climate is making weather less predictable. Of course neither the warm flooded Decembers, nor the frozen isles are normal, so perhaps we will have to find a new normal in the changes. 

Wareham woods

As I stride across managed woodland, the low sun still casts long cold shadows, drawing a pencilstroke landscape, beneath a pastel sky. I remember that January is usually colder than December, so perhaps there is still time for change and the winter I love. There is still time for cold.