Another still day, another day of grey skies and damp air, of bare branches and soggy remnants of leaves underfoot. This is so often our winter, not the frosty cold-hugging landscapes we imagine from another season. The little is seems to offer is its own gift, a resting in tune with the trees, a solitude and solace, a place of peace.

Still. Cold. The sky is white with the glaze of the early sun but will soon turn a crisp blue. It is bigger in winter, a backdrop to the bare branches, the dark bones of sleeping trees. Frost has numbed the air and the leaves but not the birds. There are blue tits in the tree above me, and a robin who comes to call each time I am here. The sounds of the street are muffled and seem a world away. For this moment the garden, the air, the peace, are the only reality.

The sun is welcoming in the new year. It has swept away the clouds, the wind, the grey sky, the damp air. It sits like a queen in her blue heaven dispensing blessing, bringing balm. We can all sit under her touch, knighted and ready for this new beginning, empowered to play our part.

Last time in my gravel garden this year. The wind is blowing clouds, branches, seagulls to stir the grey, and the dark, damp leaves are starting to dry. I like the wind. It brings new things and disturbs the old. What will it bring this new year that is waiting in the East to come and claim its glory? It is good not to know, to be excited not by plans and concrete happenings but by possibilities, by the creative forces beyond our control that will weave their magic in their own way. Come, wind, I will breathe you in, I will open my wings to your power and fly.

The blue sky that has cheered our hearts all week has gone, hidden by sheltering clouds. From a distance the sky just looks grey but when you look up you can see white shapes and textures racing towards the east, towards the sun which sometimes peeks through. It is pearly grey above and green below. The wind that brings the clouds is a thing of beauty, muscling in on my garden sanctuary, moving then resting, sometimes reaching the high-hanging leaves, sometimes my face. It isn’t cold or warm, it must be blood-heat. It is like the breath of the air, the breath of this day.