The days are short The sun a spark Hung thin between The dark and dark. John Updike, “January,”A Child’s Calendar
A bright winter’s afternoon. Just time, before the evening cold sets in, to get out for a couple of hours of brisk walking: 5 miles or so along familiar paths. So familiar that this time, I focus on the sky: changeable, unpredictable.
Sometimes it’s moody, sometimes cheerful, sometimes simply rather grey and colourless, at other times dramatic, particularly towards sunset. Come and walk with me to watch the clouds.
That was Malcolm, three-quarters of an hour ago, while we were just mopping up the last creamy, lemony, chilli-ish morsels from our pasta bowls.
It wasn’t a day when I’d given much thought to cooking. All sorts of domestic tasks, boring but necessary, followed by my currently – slightly obsessive – daily attention to learning Spanish. Our landlords popped round, and a couple of glasses of wine later, there we were, quarter to eight and nothing on the stove.
Except I’d remembered glancing at this recipe in some idle moment the other day, spotted on the BBC Good Food website
No kale? I have spring greens. No anchovies? I have bacon. And gran padano and mascarpone and lemons and nutmeg and chilli – and the all-important pasta. Twenty five minutes later, we were sitting down enjoying our meal.
Messy cook at work
And it’s a meal for when you don’t feel like a long session at the stove, but need something comforting yet with light and bright flavours. Oh, and dear veggie friends. You could easily leave out the bacon or anchovies.
I haven’t been on a ‘proper’ walk yet this year. First it was the ‘flu, and its aftermath. Then it was rain or snow on the days when I might have been free to get out for a blow in the breezy cold. And finally it’s the mud. Mud’s the one that gets me every time, despite having been given a wonderfully efficient pair of walking gaiters among my Christmas presents. I find it frustrating, pulling my boots from an oozing, slippery, sticky slick of mud only as a preparation for sliding into the next soupy puddle . It makes for slow walking on days when briskly striding out is what’s needed to combat the cold.
So today, keen to get out for at least an hour or so, and equally keen to avoid That Mud, I ended up on a star-shaped walk. I turned back down every path I started, and ended up doing a zig-zag circuit beyond the edges of the village.
Young kestrel feeding
I started off by looking for the young kestrel I’ve come across on a couple of days this week. I had first spotted him in a field near our house, dismembering and eating some small creature just 6 feet away from where I stood staring at him. He flapped off crossly to a nearby wall when he considered I’d got too close, and it was on this wall I saw him the next day too. Today he wasn’t there. I think there were too many dogs out walking their owners.
Beatswell Woods with extra water.
Then I went down into Beatswell Woods. I hoped for buds on the trees, or a few early flowers, but it was wet and wintry still. Then I walked to the fields, thinking I’d choose one of the paths there to take me in a big sweep round the edge of the village. No go. All the paths were muddy, and the horse I stopped to chat to had pretty filthy socks too. Though there was this rowan, with golden honey coloured berries instead of the more usual red.
Rowan berries against a chilly blue sky.
At the village ponds, the drakes and ducks ran fussily up to greet me, hoping for crusts. When they saw I had nothing, the drakes returned, like a bunch of fourth formers, to teasing and irritating the only couple of females in the group.
Drakes and ducks hoping for crusts.
But it was near the ponds that I had my second sighting of daffodils this year, so very early. Surely they should wait until the crocuses have put themselves about? But the crocuses are only just poking the tips of their leaves above the soil, and don’t plan on coming out yet.
Daffodils by the pond.
Returning to the woods, I saw the snowdrops. Isolated patches a couple of weeks ago, now they’re in magnificent great white drifts climbing the hillsides, nestling under trees, even risking everything by straggling across the (muddy) paths.
Drifts of snowdrops in the woods.
A bit of a curate’s egg of a walk then. A few frustrations, quite a few pleasures, but a healthy glow on my cheeks, and, just before I came into the house, another treat. All these aconites, pushing up their bright yellow faces through the soil, bringing with them hopes of Spring.
The view from the kitchen window in May: the copper beech behind the lilac.
The pond in front of the copper beech in May.
I took these photos of the garden last spring and summer. Centre-stage is the magnificent copper beech, which has dominated the spot for years and years, providing homes and recreation for generations of garden birds and squirrels. It’s the very first thing we see as we glance out of the kitchen window, a statuesque barometer to the changing seasons: from bare winter branches, though to tightly furled budding springtime leaves, to the vibrant coppery russet leaves of high summer, and the burnished and tawny tones of those same leaves as they dry and fall in the Autumn .
I took this photo yesterday morning.
The ruined copper beech with our house just behind.
Our copper beech has gone.
On Friday night, the house became surrounded by an eerie moaning, and then a rushing sound that became ever louder as the wind, gathering speed, surged helter-skelter alongside the house. Thin wiry branches of wisteria and ivy scrabbled urgently at the window panes. The wind clattered down the chimney, coughing clods of oily soot from a long-extinguished fire into the hearth. It was a noisy night. So noisy that despite all the disturbance, none of us heard the moment when the mighty copper beech lost a battle and fell to the ground.
In the morning, the kitchen was unaccountably light for such a gloomy day. We could see the sky where once our copper beech had stood. I rushed down into the garden. The tree could have lunged towards the house, at best breaking several windows. It could have tumbled into the walled garden, taking with it the lovely brick wall up which clematis and old-fashioned roses scramble throughout the summer. It could have crashed into the pond, shattering the ornamental statue in its centre, and unsettling rather a lot of fish and toads. It did none of those. Instead, it fell gracefully to the back of the lawn, avoiding other trees, and several flower beds. It stacked itself up neatly, just waiting for the next stage in its long career. Once it’s seasoned, our landlords, and their son and family will have enough fuel to keep their wood-burning stoves burning brightly for several winters to come. Is that a fitting end to its long life? I don’t know. But it certainly means that it will go on being appreciated for many years.
There’s nothing I can say to add anything to the general outpouring of grief and anger at the murders that took place within the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo yesterday. It’s frightening though. Acts of violence beget acts of violence. Ordinary people of Muslim heritage, in France, England and elsewhere must find it hard to get on with normal everyday life, interacting unselfconsciously with neighbours and colleagues. Those who fight extremism with their computers, pens and pencils may now think twice about the consequences of words and images intended only to provoke thought and debate.
I liked very much an article by Owen Jones in today’s Guardian. He reminded us of the Oslo bombings, and the murder of dozens of young Norwegians about three and a half years ago, and pointed out that in the main, Norway responded with calmness and humanity. No bloodbath followed, with faction set against faction. Somehow though, things seem different now, with arguments about religious extremism set centre-stage throughout Europe. Will France be able to manage the calm and dignified reaction the Norwegians achieved a while back?
In the community where I lived in France, there was large Muslim population, largely from North Africa. Many had decent jobs, friends from a range of backgrounds , and were fully integrated into local life. But in an area of high unemployment, they were often among the most likely to be jobless. Whole blocks of council housing had only Muslim tenants, and they stuck together, supported each other. They seemed to me to be quite vulnerable. I wonder how things will go for them if anti-Muslim feeling rises in the aftermath of this week’s events?
Today, in France, religious leaders from all faiths met and prayed together in solidarity. Implacable political opponents Nicholas Sarkozy and FrançoisHollande met at the Élysée Palace to share thoughts and ideas, where however, they were not joined by the increasingly popular and outspoken Front National leader Marine le Pen.
It feels as if we’re at a crossroads. Do we join with those who, despite their differences, come together to seek to unite communities? Or will the violence, quite simply, spread?
Twelfth Night is a bit of a grumpy day for me. Nothing festive happens. It’s just the day for dismantling the Christmas tree, packing baubles and Christmas wreaths away for another year, and reading through Christmas cards from old friends for the last time before they’re taken off to some recycling point. The house looks sparse and bare, and maybe in need of a spring-clean.
I think of Emily over in Barcelona. She’s not at work today because Twelfth Night is Epiphany. It’s the day on which Spanish children at last get their Christmas gifts, because the Day of the Three Kings is when legend has it that the Magi presented their gold, frankincense and myrrh to the infant Jesus. As Emily points out, the main downside to this late arrival of gifts is that this is the very last day of the holidays: school tomorrow, and no time to get to play with those new toys. Still, today is another chance to party and enjoy a family feast.
Our caganer is clockwork. He does back-flips.
It was Emily who may have been responsible for our finding ‘el caganer’ in our Christmas stocking this year. If your Catalan isn’t up to translating this, let me explain. It means, um, ‘the crapper’. El caganer is a little fellow in Catalan costume, squatting with his trousers down, and defecating. Why? Well, he’s a traditional part of Catalan nativity scenes. Maybe he’s a fertility symbol. Most people these days prefer the idea that it shows that great or small, we all have the same very basic needs.
Caganers on a market stall. Anybody you recognise here? (Wikimedia Commons)
So these days at any street market, you can buy caganer figures who represent the Pope, the Queen, Barack Obama, a whole range of footballers – any personality you can think of. And they’re just the same as us. Even if it’s Twelfth Night, I don’t think I’ll pack away our little ‘el caganer’ just yet.
Galette des rois, courtesy of Wikimedia CommonsA dusty miller. (Wikimedia Commons)
And when we lived in France, Epiphany was the start of the Galette des Rois season. As guests anywhere, you’ll be sure to be offered a slice of this almondy pastry confection. Part of you wants the good luck of being the person to find the ‘fève’ within your slice. This used to be a lucky bean, making you king for the day. Nowadays it’s a small china figurine, and maybe quite collectable. I’ve just been looking unsuccessfully for our little fireman ‘fève’: goodness knows where I’ve hidden him . The downside of finding the lucky bean though, is that it’s your turn to make the galette next time round.
Parts of Europe seem to be having fun. Ho hum. Here, it’s all too easy to be aware that there’s January to get through before we can think of the days lengthening and the arrival of Spring.
Today, I rejoined the human race. For the first time since before Christmas, I got up, got dressed, looked out of the window – and wanted to be out there, in the bright and frosty sunlight. Malcolm’s recovery is a good day or two behind mine, but I hope that he too is on the way up.
An early morning frozen pond
The first snowdrops
Frosty thistles
The promise of daffodils
Eleven o’clock shadow
Blue sky January
The sky reflected in the River Ure
Frosted leaves
Those Jacob sheep supervise me home every single walk.
I wasn’t up to a hike. I wasn’t even up to a stroll to the village shop, only a mile and a half away in West Tanfield. But I was up to a riverside amble, particularly when it meant coming upon little clumps of snowdrops on the woodland floor, already unsheathing their white faces to greet the winter sun.
Snowdrops push above the leaf mould
If the snowdrops are out and about, truly, all’s right with the world.
There are quite a lot of life-changing illnesses that I’m glad not to have personal experience of. And in the great scheme of things, ‘flu isn’t a big deal. But in our own little world, it has assumed a far too important place.
Here we are, more than one week on, and for both of us, day-to-day life is defined by what we can’t do, rather than by what we can. No energy to eat, which is as well, as we have no energy to cook (‘cooking’ in this context, means boiling an egg). No energy to get out and enjoy the frosty sunshine. No energy to keep the house tidy. Not even the energy to read anything but the most appreciated old favourites (thank you, Donna Leon, for reliably transporting me this week to the sights, sounds, smells and flavours of Commissario Brunetti’s beloved Venice).
We’ve both got what it takes to cough, loudly and constantly: we bark our way through morning, afternoon and evening, finally shutting up when sleep overtakes us. Talking makes it worse: not that we have much to say after our long-enforced house arrest. Maybe later I should find the energy to throw away all the uneaten Christmas treats that we didn’t have the foresight to freeze once the ‘flu took its stranglehold on everyday life.
Maybe later today I could resume my Spanish studies. I’ve been learning on-line the last few weeks, though much good it did me when Miquel came to stay: well, how useful is this? ‘Las tazas son feas’ (the cups are ugly): ‘La niña duerme cerca del gato’ (the girl sleeps near the cat). It wasn’t the stuff of fascinating conversational gambits.
Bits of gossip reach us from the world beyond our front door. That other friends had equally ‘flu-blighted Christmasses. That local seasonal gatherings saw the guest list diminish, thanks to ‘flu, from 20 friends or so to merely 7. That even households in far-flung Birmingham and Norfolk have not escaped. That even America is in the grip of The Epidemic.
So we can continue to feel sorry for ourselves, secure in the knowledge that at least we’re not alone.
Some fellow-survivors called by yesterday, and left us some of these. They haven’t kicked in yet.
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
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