Grass afield wears silver thatch;

Palings all are edged with rime;

Frost – flowers pattern round the latch;

Cloud nor breeze dissolve the clime;

~ A Frosty Day, Lord De Tabley ~

Late morning walk, by the frosty gardens of our hamlet, that offer nothing but the skeletal structures, the bare arms and twisted branches, the remnants of days long gone, calm and quiet nakedness, everything unveiled – holding strong, and keeping cool, still and without a move.

It’s fascinating, to be able to see the key scheme – the design of the gardens, in its most basic clean-cut blueprints, with no green, no flamboyance, just as they were sketched, all the main shapes and forms everything else then wraps around it once the seasons change again.

For the moment, it’s all seemingly asleep, resting perhaps, laid out open like pages of a brand new diary, with clear lines and no writing yet, empty, drowsy paragraphs, motionless.

Yet when I look closer, there’s a secret life going on, trying to keep in its tracks, without stopping, without even a pause – a little robin from a fence to twig, blackbird from underneath the hedge to a tree, or a hare by the gate and off to the field, cautiously, all in their search for anything to keep them alive, anything to get them through another frosty day, and another biting night.

Looking beyond the frosty tracks, it all makes sense, and though seemingly stern, maybe even unkind, the cold days give a few reasons to feel excited.