It’s cold. Half way through January when the new year no longer feels festive, that’s when I realise the winter slog is only just beginning. But there’s a kind of comfort in the snow.

At least you can see why it’s cold. A crunchy white layer squeaks beneath your feet and clean sharp air prickles your nose but it’s the light that is so good. Getting up in the morning, and throughout the day, there’s a cheerful radiance coming through the window. A clarity you don’t get in summer.

Winter suits Pond Cottage. Bare branches like etchings in the sky, doubled up in reflections and shadows.  Sparkly snow is a great relief after weeks of dreary rain. And a couple of inches is just about enough although it doesn’t produce the drama of the heavy falls of 2009 and 2010 when the road was blocked for weeks and it was deep and dry enough to make an igloo in the clearing.

Two figures hard at work digging and shaping snow into an igloo

The right kind of snow: making igloos in January 2009

But that’s better for the wildlife. Swans have returned to the pond (they keep coming and going). A stoat nips through the hedge to steal fatty chunks from the bird table – to our surprise the hen pheasants tried to chase him away, we thought he might retaliate but he was too interested in the bacon rind. A jay has begun to join the list of occasional visitors and last weekend a brambling swung from the sunflower feeder while a tree creeper inched down the trunk of the birch tree. When the coast was clear a wary moorhen scuttled beneath the dining room window to check the ground for crumbs.

Trees and hedgerow frame the feeder populated by pheasants and small song birds

pheasants at the feeder

All that activity framed by the window, and the wood stove burning merrily. We haven’t quite conquered the eccentricities of our new Stovax which seems a more sophisticated sort than our trusty old wood burner. However, with cold air pulling the draft up the chimney it’s belting out a good heat today. We’ve gathered the week’s burning and stored this year’s harvest to dry for next year (Ray chopped, I stacked).

Snow covered roof beneath the trees

The fireside beckons

Time to snuggle down with my Christmas copy of Bill Bryson’s Road to Little Dribbling. Hibernation would be a fine way to spend the next two months.  And chance would be a fine thing. We’ve been dicing with the seasons here long enough to know the temperatures are likely to seesaw through to Easter – and March can be a very fickle month.

Tiny heads of miniature narcissi poking through a deep covering of snow

Just when we thought it was safe to come out: narcissi March 2013