HAPPY NEW YEAR

POT'S GROWING ON? 22/12/23

Although we can choose any day to make a new start, for me the new year feels like it begins today, on the winter solstice. When the earth’s orbit reaches the point that days stop shortening, and instead lengthen from tomorrow. Slowly at first and then faster from the spring equinox in March.

Plants agree, I’ve just spotted snowdrops and various daffodils starting to shoot above ground, stretching their leaves to absorb the lengthening hours of solar power. Witch hazel flowers have begun unravelling their petals.

This morning Chris and I braved storm Pia’s battering wind and rain, setting out in the dark to walk up to the moor on the top of the hill for the moment of sunrise. Night switched to daylight in a matter of minutes as though a light had been turned on.

This year has been a worrying one, with a backdrop of global conflict and a feeling that our leaders don’t have a firm grip on anything. Many people face wars and extreme poverty, even in rich countries like the UK, millions can’t afford to heat their homes or eat properly. Divisive, hateful arguments are encouraged instead of reasoned diplomacy and friendship. Advances in climate preventing action have been paused or reversed, just at the vital moment we need to be speeding up. Wildlife habitats continue to decline, despite all that we know.

Yet there is hope. It feels like we’ve hit some kind of turning point. If not entirely for the right reasons, renewable technology like wind and solar are now producing large percentages of electricity for many countries - wind alone often producing over a quarter of UK electricity. More and more people are choosing to stand up and fight for nature, to protect wildlife.

If our gardens teach us anything, it’s to look ahead, to plan for a better future. To understand each living thing and how we are all connected, supporting one another. From the blackbird eating a hawthorn haw or holly berry, to the lowly caterpillars of moths and butterflies overwintering in dense cosy hummocks of the grasses.

At the start of a new year, however you choose to celebrate it, I wish you all time to rest and relax, to have fun and build up enthusiasm for the brighter, warmer months to come.