Midwinter Pages
from advent through to my birthday in the middle of January
January is gathering pace, is she not? We’re over half-way; I’m enjoying the cold, blank energy. (Clean) slate grey skies, deep lungfuls of cold air, freezing drizzle clogging up my eyelashes. I think that with each passing year I am becoming a Winter Sort of Person. January, in particular, seems impossibly beautiful to me in a way I hadn’t appreciated before. It glitters, doesn’t it? The frost and the light and the even the fog.
Here are my December and half-of-January pages and thoughts:
1.
As much of a tradition as going to choose the Christmas tree together is Piglet getting absolutely soaked in the puddles down the farm lane and having to strip-change in the boot of the car. Every. Single. Year. No boy has ever loved puddles as much as my Pig. We chose an absolute queen of a Christmas tree this year – grand and plump and richly green. The kids are 3-and-a-half and 6-and-a-half which was a wonderful combination of ages for excitement, decorating, plotting, planning.
2, 3, 4. St Abbs Head
I really should have written a post just about our day at St Abbs Head Nature Reserve to see the grey seal pups. It was so wonderful; a 2025 highlight. I strongly recommend going if you are in the area between mid-November and mid-December next year. The pups are so close you can see their eyelids flutter as they sleep (and baby seals seem to only have good dreams as they are all smiling as they snooze. I wonder if seal pups dream about the sea, even though they are yet to go?). The pups produce this lovely waily song when they are shouting for their mums. It’s all just magical, especially with the backdrop of the dramatic cliffs and the waves and the winter sun. I had thought twice about going as December is very busy in the studio and it seemed irresponsible to romp off to the seaside instead of getting orders made for the post, but it was the best decision. What a day.
5 and 6 Christmas!
I think my favourite thing about December is coming downstairs in the morning. I have a strong commitment to not switching the big lights on, especially in December, so we creep down to switch the twinkly lights on. There’s no point opening the curtains yet, it’s still dark outside, so the kids open their advent calendars by the light of the Christmas tree and the fairy lights. We strike a match to light the advent candle. Quiet moments of reverence together before the busy day begins.
The sparrows that roost in the ivy on the front of the house (the ivy is taking over) seem particularly noisy and squabbly in December and January. Chattering, arguing, chasing. Shooting out, cackling, mid-air tussles.
6, 7, 8. My favourite week of the year
Boxing Day ushers in the glorious week of gloopy, formless pottering that is the week between Christmas and New Year. Every day featured (very) muddy walks with a flask of tea and a big slab of Christmas cake. No one expects anything of you in this week.
9.
My now-annual January drawing of Piglet (perhaps not my finest, if I’m honest, but a record of a moment in time, regardless). In our favourite cafe, where we go for the Big Toast and hot chocolates, hood up, chatting away to one of his soft toys (Piglet got a rat and Trix got a pigeon for Christmas!). I’m soaking in the things he still loves – like soft toys – that might be cast off as babyish in the next few years. He’ll be seven later this year. His hands are huge, like when you know a puppy is going to turn out big because of the size of his paws, and he’s losing the soft edges little by little. I can’t beat him in a race anymore, but I can still get him on my shoulders (just not back down again). He’s constantly amazing me with how perceptive and sweet he can be (and how silly!). I feel very lucky to be welcoming in a new year with these two earth-angels.
10, 11, 12. A Not Very Successful Trip to the Seaside
By the 3rd of January I was feeling a strong pull to be by the sea, to have my hair whipped by wind and see the waves and the distant horizon. We packed everyone into the car and headed for Cheswick Beach in Northumberland, one of our favourites. It’s usually an enormous sandy beach, but as we crested the dunes we saw that the waves were battering up against the dunes. It felt like the earth had been slightly tipped, the horizon seemed higher than we were, and the sea was off balance. A friend pointed out after that it could have been to do with the supermoon; or maybe the storms that we travelling the country, but whatever the reason, the sea was absolutely wild. The breakers were enormous and the ocean was roaring like a lion. It was totally thrilling. The kids started charging about, giddily chasing the waves as they retreated and running screaming as the next wave broke and rushed in. All very fun until the little one got carried away and followed a wave out too far. Ross & I were shouting at her to run back, but she couldn’t hear us (or chose not to?) with the roaring and the wind, and she couldn’t outrun the next wave when she did turn round and was lifted straight off her feet into the freezing January ocean. Ross was right there, already, to get her back onto her feet, but she was very wet and very very upset. Not even a Christmas-cake-picnic in the sheltered dunes could settle her, so we tramped back to the car for shivery strip-changes in the car boot and lots of blankets and cuddles. Ross had been fully dressed when he had to charge into the sea to rescue her, so there were several naked knees in the car park.
Piglet is the saltiest kid you’ll ever meet. He could play in the waves all day and never tire of it. I must remember to get him his top-up of Vitamin Sea regularly this year. He had a wonderful time (and I loved it, too), but Trix gave the beach trip a Terrible out of Ten.
When we arrived at Cheswick there was a kestrel hovering above the dune-grass. And we saw more on the way home on the wires above the road. I feel a big kestrel piece coming on.
13 and 14
Back to school, nursery, work. The holidays went too quickly. One good thing, though, about being back to the school run, is that January gives glorious sunrises and dramatic big skies AFTER the kids are dropped off. So, on day one, I set out with my sketching kit straight after drop off and caught the most lovely sunrise. It was minus 2 degrees C. I had my new field watercolours – a tiny little compact set – to try for the first time. I was a little surprised that they sparkled on the page, and I felt like the colours were a bit lumpy, until I realised that the paint was freezing on the page and the paint-water had lumps of ice in it. Not the ideal circumstances to try a new material AND I forgot to pack my fingerless gloves (also new, lucky me, from the Eribe sample sale – linked similar ones here), but it was worth becoming a block of ice for the joy of that sunrise.
The rest of the drawings here are from one Monday later on a sketch-walk here at Drygrange. I chose one spot – the base of a tree – and tried to capture the textures I found using kneadable erasers and an ink pad. Very fun, quite messy.
And that, my friends, brings us up to my birthday. I think having a January birthday is a blessing I bestow upon those around me (!) as everyone needs a reason to celebrate and have a bit of a jolly in January. I’ve just turned 39 – the last year of my thirties! – and I am, once again, bowled over by what a beautiful life this is and how fleeting it seems. I think I’ve spent a good deal of my thirties cocooned in quite a small (marvellous) world – Drygrange, the kids, Ross, the studio – and I have loved it – and I’m also wondering if the kids being a little older, and me being a little older, might mean I’m ready to try a few more new things and expand out ever so slightly. LETS NOT GET CARRIED AWAY THOUGH, I’m still going to be under a blanket on the sofa by 9pm and I’m not getting a passport!