No winter lasts forever……

Last time, I left us in a graveyard in Haworth, just as winter began – with twinkling lights, warm mulled drinks and that nostalgic feeling of all the spices of Christmas yet to come. And now, as I write on the most beautiful spring-like day of early March, a day where the light slanted gently through the bedroom window at 6.45am accompanied by a blackbird’s tune, I wonder if it’s time yet to shed the coat? 

March, coming in with all the escaping sheep, is yet to be fully experienced. I often say that spring is my favourite season, but truthfully I love them all. So instead of leaping ahead with thoughts of the year to come, let’s look back at the winter, which, for me, has been unexpectedly and thankfully quite calm.

For many, winter is a season to be feared, or at the very least approached with trepidation. I can’t tell you how many times I heard ‘winter is coming’ from various friends and, in these times of  turbulent weather, I’ll agree that being prepared and battening down some of the hatches is not a bad idea. As a lover of light I can also easily understand why some folk have to endure a couple of gloomier months and seem to only become cheerful again like little rabbits on the 1st of March.

I always find Christmas a tricky time. Especially the day itself, which is not quite the same without all of the grandparents and good stuff on telly. But the week leading up to that much exalted day wasn’t too bad. Meeting pals for lunch, some exchanging of gifts of the sock/candle/book variety, and something that made me strangely happy: a nail in a wall. 

The new photo shed has a long, plain wall. My own wreath is always the last. This year I did two. One foraged from a dog walk, and one from the usual left overs, adorned with this year’s calendar cover colour for the ribbons: chocolate brown. As ever, I was led to the light that revealed itself on a chilly late December Friday morning as I opened the cedar-scented shed door. In a flash Mr Simply found a sturdy nail and a hammer and I had the free gift of a whole new, previously unimagined, photo wall. Heaven.

Heaven for me, as you’ll already know, is either a decent mug of tea, a book or a beach. A beach in winter is as good as it gets. And this winter I’ve been lucky enough to see the same beaches twice. 

As soon after the festivities as we could manage, with a bag full of books, a basket packed with a special new vase, a couple of bowls and a branch that would double as a tiny Christmas tree, we went to find those beaches. In a place that for me is now firmly associated with winter or, should I say, somewhere which, if you can go there briefly, makes winter a place to be enjoyed rather than endured.

A walk on one of those beaches just after New Year revealed something I’ll probably never see again. Snow on sand. 

And there it is, that word. The one that if you just add ‘drops’ to gives you all the hope you need to get through January. February would bring snowdrops. As sure as the fact that no winter lasts forever, you can rely on snowdrops and their ability to soothe all souls.

You can also rely on January to be the longest month. I’d like to say I stayed under a blanket with a book for the entire month but that would be as much of a tall story as the ones you see on Instagram on January 2nd, where all the wedding florists are ‘overwhelmed by the number of enquiries’ for the year ahead and beyond.

Inevitably I read a lot of books because it’s the one month when the enforced early darkness means you have to compensate for the lack of light by escaping into the pages of something that takes you far away. Being in Scotland just after Christmas and into the first week of January the lack of light is so much more pronounced. Darkness descended each day at around 2.30 pm. 

Alongside those books were some restorative walks. Nothing too adventurous with the small blind dog, but there’s something about sea air that makes you want to get your money’s worth and fill up your lungs for the rest of the year.

There were lots of business chats. As well as being the longest month, January is the loneliest of months for the florist or flower grower and an hour on the phone to me, discussing business plans; growth; new ideas; pricing; brand philosophy; websites; customers; and all sorts of other things which are of course confidential, is an hour where I think spirits are lifted – albeit not as much as by the first sighting of a drift of snowdrops.

The first sighting of snowdrops for me was here, in the shed, late January. A lovely piece of work for a fine eatery in town (Kitchen 91, Hebden Bridge) allowed me to use lots of potted snowdrops along the tables and a huge French confit pot full of glistening honesty on the bar. I love the scarce feeling of flowers in winter, the visual palette cleanser after the abundance of autumn and all of the winter fir. There’s always something out there if you stretch your imagination (or more importantly, if you can persuade others to stretch theirs).

Imaginations were awoken, stretched and captivated during the shortest month at that garden I go on about a fair bit. On a bitterly cold, but mercifully dry, weekend in February the annual pilgrimage to see the Cambo snowdrops was made by me, Éva Németh and a few others who know the health and well-being benefits of crouching down outside with a weighty camera and of coming inside to warm your freezing hands on a steaming mug of hot gingery Feragaia before settling down for a calming couple of hours with a special bowl and a few slow-moving snowdrops.

^{Above photos by Éva Németh}

Leaving behind those empty beaches is never easy but there was work to be done. Spring will soon be upon us. Classes start for real next week and there are cobwebs to catch and floors to mop. “Why are you doing so much cleaning?” someone asked the other day. It only happens once a year and it’s a ritual, a bit like looking at snowdrops, that sets me up for the year. The small community of much valued guests who come here deserve to have a comfortable, clean and safe space in which to create their own magic. I wish there was a magic wand that divested me of all the detritus of a year just gone, but, as with much of life, there is no magic. Just hard graft and the certainty that whilst no winter lasts forever, no spring skips its turn…..and soon there will be lambs, and hopefully not in the garden.