Here’s a very pink-and-purple selection of pictures to mark the tipping point between long nights and long days (in this hemisphere, at least). There’s yellow out there, but I tend to think of that as belonging earlier in the spring, or maybe a little later, as dandelions replace tired daffodils. Here, now, the rosemary is running riot (and quite right too, with Lady Day next week), and the violets are bringing their own colour, and there are grape hyacinths all over the place, and it’s a lovely day to get the washing out. Overhead, there’s white: plum blossom and cherry blossom (next door’s plums are always ahead of ours, so the show goes on and on).
Some people take today as the first day of spring. I prefer the Celtic calendar, which puts it at the beginning of February. Despite the occasional cognitive dissonance (and wasn’t February miserable this year?) I like it that way: mostly because I can’t be doing with Midsummer Day somehow being the first day of summer. Anyway, I’m in too good a mood to argue today. Today’s it’s definitely spring.
The snowdrops are out for Candlemas, as they should be. It’s been a grey, heavy, sort of a day, no shadows to be seen because there was no sunshine to cast them, so I suppose we’re plodding on into spring. The days are longer. There are buds on the trees.
A presenter on Radio 3 said earlier that Candlemas is the Christian festival of light, and, while I suppose that isn’t entirely untrue, it’s far from being the first thing that springs to mind for me. If I told you that Christmas is the celebration of the mystery of the Incarnation, I’d be correct but pedantic. But for me The Presentation of Christ in the Temple is in the same size print as Candlemas. The light is figurative, although it’s coupled with the physical light of the lengthening days. I rarely manage to get to church in the evening at all these days, so miss out on the candlelit procession which in any case was not much a feature in many of my previous churches.
For me, it’s most poignant as the hinge between Christmas and Holy Week, looking back and looking forward, prophecy and fulfilment and prophecy again. It calls back the glow and the glory, the paradox of God entering God’s world and God’s temple all but unnoticed, and it warns of the sword and the falling and rising. It picks up the disquieting note of myrrh and underscores it: this child was born to die.
Last week I was able to see these icons by Sonya Atlantova and Oleksandr Klymenko, which are on temporary display in Ely Cathedral. They’re painted on fragments of ammunition boxes recovered from battle zones of the war in Ukraine. The symbolism is obvious but no less effective for that: war and death transformed into love and beauty – but you can’t, shouldn’t, mustn’t forget it. Look at that hole where Mary’s heart is.
Loving anybody leaves you open to the certainty of grief when you have to leave them or lose them (it’s the anniversary of my father’s funeral today, too, Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace); the alternative is, of course, monstrous. Parenthood makes you vulnerable, or, perhaps, aware of how vulnerable you are, how very little you can do alone to protect those who look to you for protection. Candlemas is, for me, when we understand a little more deeply what Christmas means. This child is born to die, because all of us are, and even if this birth and this death change birth and death for all of us, it isn’t going to hurt any the less.
On a lighter (ha!) note, I recall from the Journal of Saw It Somewhere Studies that jam tarts are a traditional Candlemas treat. The shape recalls the Christ Child’s cradle, apparently. This was never a part of my own tradition, but I was making chicken pie for dinner and had some pastry left over, so here we go.
The earth tips back and the light reaches back out to the north, stretches, spreads over us. The sun stays past four o’clock, just a little bit more than eight hours now. The solstice marked the turning point; now I begin to notice.
It’s cold, though. I walked out earlier, just a little way. My loose silky trousers, practical for a healing abdomen, are not so practical for a January walk; I am grateful for my brother’s long-ago recommendation of long-john base layers. I realised, half-way out, that my mind was singing me the enquiry of the Three Kings, the steady four-four of Mendelssohn’s setting keeping pace with my footsteps. Say, where is he born the king of Judea, for we have seen – for we have seen – have seen his star – have see-een his star and are co-ome to ado-ore him – have see-een his star and are co-ome to adore him… These Magi are walking, I think; it isn’t the swaying three-four camel-gait of We Three Kings. Too late, too slow, looking in the wrong place, but getting there in the end.
I caught a glimpse of the cathedral between two houses (you can see it from most places, if you look hard enough) and the flag on the west tower was streaming straight out in a rectangle, like a child’s drawing. The moon, just shy of a quarter, winked through a window of cloud and went away again. I turned, left it at my left shoulder, and turned back towards the sun, and into the wind.
In the garden, the cyclamen have bloomed: sturdy stems, delicate mauve flowers shaped like fantastic head-dresses springing from a rolled band, more outlandish than you’d see in any nativity play. I planted them under the most troublesome of the apple trees, hoping to introduce a little colour against that gloomy fence if nothing else. Suddenly, I’m vindicated.
I’ve been spending more time (and also more money) in charity shops this year; it comes of spending more time in town. Yesterday I wandered into the Sue Ryder shop (with some assistance from a kind person who held the door for the pushchair) and found these golden apples. They reminded me immediately of a set of four polystyrene, white-leaved, iridescent-glittered apple-shaped Christmas tree decorations from my childhood. The fight over who got to put them on the tree was always vicious: for some reason the obvious solution, do one each, was unacceptable. So I bought these ones in a fit of nostalgia, and because I was already on a bit of a kick buying tree decorations that the toddler and the cat probably couldn’t break. I hope they’ll turn out to be not so much the apples of discord.
But they sparked some other associations, too. Narnia. Jesus Christ the apple tree. The fascination with orchards and walled gardens and fruit trees that’s been a fixture in my head since we first viewed this house, five winters ago, and realised that the bare trees against the garage wall had labels telling us what sort of pears they were. Martin Luther claiming that even if the world were going to end tomorrow, he would still plant his apple tree. (Was Nevil Shute thinking of that when he wrote his gardening couple facing down the apocalypse in On the Beach?)
The best time to plant an apple tree being twenty years ago. Well, our predecessors in this house did that for us. (Yes, apples as well as pears.) The second best time being now. As for the best time to convert an evergreen into an enchanted tree growing golden apples – well, probably Tuesday.
There were some extremely Christmassy flower arrangements in the cathedral a few weeks ago, I assume for the Christmas fair. Gold ribbon and poinsettia and all that sort of thing. Now, of course, they’re all gone, and we’re paying no attention to the huge tree in the corner. Such is the tension between secular Christmas and church Advent.
All this to say that my mind doesn’t go straight to ‘flowers’ on 2 December. But, as you see, there are a few still around. Apart from this delightfully Goth polyanthus, which feels appropriate to the season in colour scheme even if it’s flowering rather earlier than I expected, the French lavender in the front garden is still going, and in the back the Peruvian lilies haven’t given up yet.
I’m beginning to feel more equal to the garden, actually. Last week I finally chopped out the sixth and last dead box bush (devoured by beetles last year along with most of the rest of the country’s) and before that I’d pruned the fruit trees and trimmed the beeches back. There are still a load of wild strawberries to pull up, but it definitely feels like an improvement. Last year I had to get a man in to get it all under control. Worth every penny – but it feels so good to have been able to do it myself this time.
When we moved into this house, the front garden was entirely covered in chips of purple slate. Now it is almost entirely covered in green.
I don’t have a proper ‘before’ photo, because the whole thing was so boring that I never bothered (and when I finally came to getting rid of slate and planting plants I had very limited time and other priorities).
Here you see the boringness relieved by a pot of tulips:
You also see the irritating little weeds that grew among the stones. Shallow roots, but a pig to keep on top of and very obvious, at least when I didn’t have a magnificent tub of tulips to lead the eye elsewhere.
Last autumn, my maternity leave project (and I cannot at this distance think why I thought that this was a good idea) was transforming this into an actual garden, with intentional plants growing in the soil.
You might remember me asking on here for ideas of what to do with a small eastward facing plot that probably wasn’t going to get a lot of watering. A friend suggested that Mediterranean was the way to go. I’ve always loved herbs, so it didn’t take much effort to come up with a plan of rosemary against the house, lavender around the edges, and thyme as ground cover, with peonies (because what the hell, why not) to make the middle interesting. One of our bay trees (wedding present, 14 years ago) could go at the front corner, and what about an olive tree? And I was going to grow a passion flower up the railings.
I got Tony to gather up the slate chips (eventually a friend took them away to cover up a much less promising bit of ground). I ordered some plants from Thompson and Morgan, and quite a lot more from Norfolk Herbs. (I highly recommend Norfolk Herbs, by the way: their prices are extremely good and the delivery was swift.) On a whim, I threw some chamomile and bergamot into the order. The Thompson and Morgan stuff came in dribs and drabs; the Norfolk Herbs, all at once.
And every time I had a spare twenty minutes, when the baby had fed and gone to sleep deeply enough to notice that I’d handed her to someone else, I dashed out the front and put in another two or three plants. I’d leave the front window open so I’d hear when she started crying. I chucked a bulb or two in with each plant – tulips, daffodils, crocus, tête-à-tête, iris… Bit by bit, it got done.
We didn’t get all the slate up first go. For a long time afterwards I was picking up a dozen chips and moving them to the edge every time I went out.
Then, of course, everything went dormant over the winter, and I had to wait to see what was going to happen next.
The bulbs came first. A brave blue iris, then the tête-à-tête narcissi.
It was at this point that I started getting really happy with what I’d done. They cheered things up immensely.
On Mothering Sunday, I was presented with a pot of purple primulas. Those went in too.
Then the tulips flowered.
Meanwhile, the herbs were beginning to get going. Come May, there was still quite a bit of earth showing between the plants, but they’d woken up. The bergamot, which I’d thought had maybe died, was very enthusiastic.
We got our olive tree, too.
Over the summer, everything went absolutely bananas. The chamomile flowered and went everywhere. The bergamot came out such a gorgeous, vivid deep pink that I felt my whim was vindicated a hundred times over.
And it all kept going.
It’s less exuberant now, obviously: it’s November again. And I trimmed the chamomile back, and I’m half way round cutting off the dead lavender flowers. Even so, it’s less tidy than the slate was, but it’s much more cheerful and welcoming – not least for the bees. I was rather pleased to read, several months into this process, that:
If you want to help a variety of bees, the best way is to plant flowers that bloom sequentially from early spring to late autumn – even if you only have a window box or pots on a patio.
Which I seem to have achieved almost accidentally. I’m glad the bees are enjoying it. I certainly am.
It felt rather appropriate to be sitting in the conservatory yesterday, looking out at the roses still just about blooming and ripe apples on the trees, drinking the tea that came with this season’s Ffern perfume, and embroidering a reindeer into a baby hat. Today we rotated the mattress. It’s not exactly a ritual; it’s just that we’re more likely to remember to do it if we link it with the solstices and equinoxes.
I tend to mark the changing of the seasons by the cross-quarter days (I find it less depressing that way) so for me, autumn began at Lammas, at the beginning of August. That doesn’t mean that the half-way point isn’t important, though. It still looks very green outside, but when I look a second time there are a few red and orange leaves, and tonight there’s a patter of rain on the conservatory roof, and the promise of more.
Artwork by Margaret Talbot at the Bridging the Gap exhibition at Babylon Arts
The good
Summer! It’s sunny, but it’s not too outrageously hot. I opened up the new Ffern perfume at about seven in the morning on the summer solstice. Gorgeous.
The mixed
OK, it’s a bit muggy.
The difficult and perplexing
A gallstone attack when I was out for a walk. Extremely painful and unpleasant. Had to retreat under a shady tree and be sick into a hedge in relative private. I am on the waiting list to have my gall bladder removed. I continue to wait.
What’s working
I’ve been playing around with bullet journalling, in its original iteration as a glorified to-do list, and not bothering trying to make it pretty. It’s actually working pretty well as a way to keep track of the sixteen different mixed metaphorical plates I have spinning.
Reading
I devoured She Who Became The Sun (Shelley Parker-Chan). It’s great. It’s a historical epic with a little magical realism, and is particularly inspiring to me at the moment in that the author simply decided to have fun (I am paraphrasing what she says in her acknowledgements here) and created an excellent book. I should note that it’s fairly bleak and occasionally very gory, and a few months ago I wouldn’t have been able to cope with it at all.
Elsewhere, I got through the long long nights with the whole of the Chalet School series (Elinor M. Brent-Dyer). I have gone back and begun again at the beginning (just finished Exile last night), but I also took a little side-step and tried out the Crater School series (Chaz Brenchley). Also a load of fun: it’s a pitch-perfect homage and is, you know, a boarding school story on Mars.
Then I picked up Cinderella Ate My Daughter (Peggy Orenstein), which takes a look at the consumer culture surrounding children, particularly girls. It was published in 2011, and I couldn’t help wondering how different it would look post-Frozen, and after Britney-gate. There’s also barely any mention of trans identities, which in 2024 seems an obvious angle to explore. I should probably be grateful.
A little smocked dress. I finished the front and then decided that the back also needed to be smocked, so I’m back in the tedious gathering stage.
Watching
The Great British Sewing Bee. I am behind on Doctor Who, but having been spoiled for the last couple of episodes I’m not sure that I’ll make the effort to catch up.
Looking at
Bridging the Gap, an exhibition by women textile artists, all members of EAST (East Anglian Stitch Textiles) at Babylon Arts. I was rather taken by a whimsical map of Bloomsbury embellished with quotations from notable women associated with the area, but my favourite pieces were probably Margaret Talbot‘s gorgeous landscapes.
Cooking
Beef pot roast in the Instant Pot. It’s not exactly the weather for it, but at least the pressure cooker minimises the cooking heat.
Eating
We went out to Wildwood for our anniversary; I had bruschetta, seafood linguine, and tiramisu.
Moving
A very, very gentle run-up (ha) to Couch to 5k, beginning with a lot more walking even than that routine recommends. So far, so good.
Noticing
Goldfinches!
In the garden
Complete chaos, but this evening I have managed to take the compost out, water the passion flower on the front fence, and pull up a few weeds.
Appreciating
Suddenly having a little more time to myself.
Acquisitions
Mostly clothes: four dresses from the Joanie sale, a sports bra, and ankle socks. Yesterday I took three books to the book swap cabinet at the top of the hill – and came home with two. Oh well.
Line of the week
From Cinderella Ate My Daughter:
While Zoe is cute, in a radioactive orange kind of way, her release fell short of expectations, the – ka-ching! – hope of creating a female Elmo. Even slapping a tutu on her did not help.
This coming week
What’s become the regular routine – and will be for a few weeks more – and then a very busy weekend.
That’s it for the moment. I’m hoping to keep this going, but no promises. I hope you’re all keeping well.
The garden is running wild, and has been since the summer. It’s been on my conscience, too. It looks a little tidier now that the leaves are falling, but it’s also more obvious how much needs trimming back and cutting down now that it isn’t just a mass of green.
So today I had someone round to give me a quote for tidying it up and, as he put it, putting it to bed for the winter. I’d love to be able to do it myself, but it just isn’t going to happen. This is the next best option.
These days I usually find myself going out with the baby in the pram, and coming back with the baby in the sling and the shopping in the pram. This was the day I bought a passion flower, two cakes, a box of cereal, and a cushion…
Not much to report other than in the garden, but I want to establish the Monday format while I remember what it is I think I’m doing. I now have all the components for my big winter skirt. I also have ideas for a couple of quilts. What I don’t have, or not for long enough to get anything done, is free hands. I’m hopeful that a baby bouncer may help there…
In the back garden, chaos continues to reign. I am meaning to get out and pick the blackberries before the devil spits (or worse) on them at Michaelmas, but I have a nasty feeling that’s as far as it’s going to go. In the front garden, I co-opted my youngest brother to plant a passion flower to replace the two that died in the heat. Tony has cleared several bags’ worth of slate chippings and all of the membrane, and the next step is for me to order some more plants to fill in the gap. I have managed to put half a dozen bulbs in with my own hands while someone else holds the baby, or she takes a (very short) nap. It’s slow going, but then gardening often is.
Kathleen Jowitt 