Life must be filled up

A snowy garden this morning. I wasn’t expecting that; my weather app didn’t predict it. The horses don't seem to mind it.

I was expecting The Big Freeze to be a documentary of the type you might watch on Talking Pictures, so I was disconcerted to see Chris Packham (rather a bête noire of mine) telling us that this was a special edition of Winterwatch. I needn’t have worried, as the bulk of the programme was taken up with a contemporary account compiled by the old Tonight team: Cliff Michelmore (what an excellent broadcaster he was), Derek Hart and Kenneth Allsopp. It’s strange how selective memory is. I don’t recall the twenty-foot snow drifts, abandoned cars and trains and starving cattle, although it must all have been on the news. I remember only what happened to us and as we lived in the suburbs, we were spared being snowed in, unlike so many people in country areas. My strongest memory is that in early March there were still great heaps of dirty, frozen snow at the edges of all the pavements.

My journey to school was quite long: a fifteen minute walk to the bus stop, then the bus followed by another, shorter walk at the other end. I don’t remember having a day off school but I may have got that wrong. We schoolgirls took to wearing thick, ribbed stockings (don’t get excited, chaps), to the bemusement of our mothers, who had bad memories of the black woollen stockings they had to wear to school. Ours were warm and, at that time, fashionable. That autumn, the fashion pages had headlines like ‘Remember last winter?’ and were full of warm clothes.

Keeping warm at home wasn’t easy. We had two coal fires downstairs, my parents had an electric fire set into a wall in their bedroom and that was it, except that you could keep warm in the kitchen if the oven was on and the door open. Porridge for breakfast set us up for the journey to school. We had one of those cylinder paraffin stoves (now regarded as antiques), which had previously been used only when my sister or I were ill in bed. We could lie tucked up, watching the comforting red light which glowed through the little window. Imagine allowing that now! The paraffin was bought from the ironmonger’s at the end of the road (how wonderful that shop smelt). That winter, the paraffin heater was put in the hall, an unheard-of extravagance. I don’t remember that it did much to take off the chill.

The striking factor about that freeze was how long it lasted. Some people are predicting a Waxwing winter this year. I do hope they’re wrong. I last saw Waxwings in 2010.

It was freezing cold this morning and dark when the gardener came to tidy the hedges and cut down some shrubs which were annoying me. Now the view from every window has changed for the better. I like to have the garden tucked up tidily for the winter. I feel the same about the countryside beyond the garden, loving to see neat hedges, empty fields and the bare silhouettes of trees. Like the face of a woman with good bone structure, the trees get more beautiful with age. The pots of summer bedding have been emptied, scrubbed and put away and all the flower beds mulched with my own compost (hard work).

Looking at the picture frame of winter jasmine which has suddenly appeared around the dining room window, the gardener remarked, ‘You forget it the rest of the year’. So true; nothing to look at in summer, overshadowed by the clematis and honeysuckle on the same trellis then, just as the days grow dark and short, it bursts forth in starry sprays. It’s pouring with rain this afternoon so the picture above is one taken two years ago.

Gardeners always have something to look forward to. There will be snowdrops and hellebores and the daffodils potted up in September are showing little snouts already. Depressed because autumn is turning into winter? Not at all!

I know I’ve used that quote before but I love it and it seems particularly appropriate just now. It’s been so murky here I’ve needed lights on in the car and in the house all day long. I might just as well have kept the curtains drawn. About half an hour ago I had reason to step outside and was struck by the beauty and profusion of the winter jasmine. It’s quite tightly clipped all around a window and positively shone in the gloom. Earlier, being vexed by things, I didn’t even notice it but then it lifted my spirits and I hope it does yours. Happy St Nicholas' Day.

No, not curly kale or purple sprouting, delicious as they are, but those useful hardy perennials which keep their leaves in the winter. Here’s a few of mine. First up, Epimedium ‘Fröhnleiten’. How fresh and shiny does it look?


( more )

It’s freezing cold and even with the heating on I’m wearing furry boots indoors. In spite of this, I love the winter countryside. This morning I drove to my usual garden centre to check out greenhouses (20% off until the end of January). The bleached look of the fields; the neatly trimmed hedges of a well managed countryside, russet where beech leaves hang on; black tree outlines; subtle greens and browns everywhere. These are the real colours of winter. I’ll have no truck with ‘winter gardens’ full of gaudy dogwood stems and phormiums; nor with claustrophobic conifers and heathers. No need to pretend that winter is actually some other season. I’d rather see the bare bones for a while and surely snowdrops, hellebores and a few select winter-flowering shrubs should be enough for anybody?

While I was at the garden centre I bought some hyacinths (white, of course) in a pot, so that I can enjoy watching them grow and eventually catch that wonderful scent. When I told the man in charge of greenhouses that I’d just moved he said, ‘Where’r yew tew now then?’ I like that. It’s strange that I’ve only moved a mile from my old house yet feel so much more in the country.