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I don’t remember winters feeling this long when I lived in the city. Even in the middle of winter, the small, modern apartments I lived in were always warm and cosy. In London, especially, whether it was winter or summer, I could happily stroll up and down the high street, nipping into shops or a café. The weather didn’t have as great an impact on my day to day life.

Here in the rural Lake District, in our old house that needs a lot of work, winters feel long. When the dark and cold really set in towards the end of the year, you pretty much don’t see the neighbours until the light starts to return in late February. There’s a strong feeling of hunkering down.

This winter has been extra difficult because our new heating system, which I spent months researching, wanting so much to make the ‘right’ decision, stopped working properly in June last year and so far we’ve been unable to get it fixed. Luckily, we have the log burner in the living room and that’s where I’ve spent most of my time all winter. And, thankfully, we can still get hot water.

Whilst I have one eye on making sure we have a functioning system before the end of the coming summer, the hardships of winter are already beginning to fade in my memory as the days get longer and warmer. When spring starts to arrive, it really is like a miracle, no matter how many times you witness it. There’s a feeling of complete amazement that it is happening again, that somehow everything is growing and bursting with life. Without the protection of the city, the transition into a new season seems more obvious and more important.

The snowdrops have already come and gone, the primroses and daffodils are in flower, the bluebell foliage is growing by the day and I have already sowed radish, sweet peas, field beans, lettuce and spring onions. I’ve been busy preparing some new veg beds as I’m trying to be more organised this year so I can grow a greater proportion of our food. This is very important to me as wanting to eat home grown food is one of the primary reasons I moved here.

My parents bought me a brilliant book for Christmas which is really making the planning and execution of sowing and planting so much easier for me. My dad has been gardening his entire adult life and says that this is the best book he has ever come across!

And now that it’s getting warmer and it’s easier to move around the house without feeling constantly contracted, I can feel some new creative energy too and I’m looking forward to getting to work.

Someone told me a while ago that they already see me as a successful writer, poet and artist. And in many ways, I do too. But she also told me that I wasn’t a ‘promoter’. And she was right. There are many reasons why I haven’t been the best at turning my creative output into something more tangible that can be exchanged for money and I won’t go into all those reasons now (let me know if you’d like me to write about this in the future), but it’s obvious to me that this is the year that I will dedicate more time to this.

I do believe it’s important to keep reminding yourself to trust the timing of the unfolding of your own life. This is especially true if you just don’t seem to fit into the conventional timeline we’ve been taught of how life ‘should’ go. I often joke that I’ve done life a bit backwards!

So, as the light and warmth return, I look forward to more blogging, more poems, more creativity and more expansion. And I look forward to sharing the journey with you all. Thank you so much for being here!

Love and courage,

Leah

Ben and I recently watched the film Shadowlands with Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger. It’s based on the true story of the writer C. S. Lewis and how he came to meet his wife and about their relationship. You know you’re always in for something remarkable with Anthony Hopkins but oh my, this was utterly mesmerising. I was so captivated, in fact, that I watched it twice and feel I could watch it a thousand times more. 

There is a scene in the film between C. S. Lewis and one of his students at Oxford in which the student says to Lewis, “My father used to say we read to know we’re not alone”. 

A strange feeling of blissful warmth tinged with such sadness washed over me when I heard that line. We read to know we’re not alone. Surely there could be no better way of saying it. Doesn’t it bring tears to your eyes?

I thought back to an email of thanks I received just recently from a reader I have never heard from before. She gave a brief description of herself, her family, the place she lives with her husband and their longing for a simple, slow life doing meaningful work. She ended her note, ‘From a kindred, sensitive soul.’

Though her email was not long, her words and descriptions painted a beautiful vision in my mind of the place she lives and her simple openness made me feel as though I knew the essence of her heart. Through her words of gratitude I knew that my work had helped her know she is not alone. Her note in return did the same for me.

Towards the very end of the film, C. S. Lewis repeats the same line to one of his new students and afterwards adds a question:

“We read to know we’re not alone. Do you think that is so?”

Well, yes, I do think it is so, although I’m not sure I could have articulated it before seeing this film. That one short line has helped me appreciate with much greater clarity the writers whose words fill my own bookshelves. Writers who speak what is in my own heart. Friends I will never meet who offer me the lifelong gift through their pages of written words of knowing I am not alone.

The skies are often grey, the days still dark, though the light can be felt pushing in just a little around the edges. The temperatures are sometimes mild, sometimes freezing again.

But here in the dismal drizzle of January, there are small, astonishing surprises. Red-pink mounds are pushing themselves out from the rhubarb root, the last thing one expects from such a gnarly brown mass. The fresh faces of the snowdrops are waking and the sound of birdsong fills the early morning.

Nestled within the darkness, whether it is the darkness of the natural world or a shadow that has fallen across our lives, there are always the glimmers of a new beginning.

Here’s a little poem I wrote a while ago, which has patiently been waiting for this time of year.

Little snowdrop
purest white
your generous gift
is my delight.

P.S. I would love to know what glimmers of new beginnings you have been noticing, either out in the natural world where you are or within your own life? Have you noticed or felt some small, hopeful sliver of light after a period of darkness? It would be good to hear from you and know how things are in your life. Leave me a comment below.