This week the sky darkened and snow came in a twenty minute flurry. For a moment the world slowed, the dim garden, blackened by November, appeared to consume the flakes in slow motion. They did not settle, but lit the darkness and then, as fast as the flurry came, it was over.  The nasturtiums which were the most brilliant of greens just the day before slumped limp and lifeless, their vitality gone as winter elbowed autumn from the present and into the past to make the now its own.

Though I love the winter for it being a season of doing and re-evaluation, the next few weeks of long nights and short days are the hardest when our skies remain grey. On a bright day even the shadows at the bottom of the slope hold fast and faster as we move towards the solstice. The days are not long enough if you are not up and out there early to make the most of them, but with a garden slowed, we at least acquire the time to look. We leave the garden in winter, clearing only what we need to to enjoy the cycles being completed and concentrate on the bittercress and the Poa annua that take this down time to grow and seed whilst you are not looking.