A seasonal selection of photos taken in the gardens at Forde Abbey

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January might come with a wind that roars, but so too with pump action bellows for an olfactory cheesecake of scent. Perfumed nose gays carried on the wind and mapping out an alternative smellscape from the a to b via contours and elevations. It’s why you can find yourself stood by the side of a camellia and yet be following your nose to find lonicera fragrantissima - a perfume bottle masquerading as a shrub.

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Colour measured in 7, 3 and 5 inches or will be. January might lay claim to the mud, but there’s an undeniable bubbling of life, on and just below the surface . Coaxed by the warmth, even the daffodils are beginning to emerge, and to add to the ranks, @joshua_sparkes has added: lemon sailboat, lieke, Thalia and Sol Dior, with a few more handfuls of Geranium. Earlies, mids and lates depending on this years definition of early, mid and late anyway.

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If it wasn’t tethered last night, it was airborne. A crashing around in the dark of tree branches and pots. The windows didn’t rattle, they howled. The quiet beauty of a wolf moon all but lost to the kinetic energy that ripped across the hills at pace.

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The clumps are slowly merging into a slow trickle. Joining up to make rivulets and streams, weaving in and out and around the January clag. In place of the lights, now wrapped and wound and taken down with the other part of the year. But, in the kitchen garden, a hazel tunnel is the sole survivor of Christmas. An overarching fringe of tassels, soon to be decorated with snowdrops hung from sculpted moss balls. Why leave behind the creative crafting in December, when it’s needed most of all in January? Along with cake, the essential ingredient in two kokedama workshops @joshua_sparkes will be hosting in February (8th & 22nd). Tickets online - link in bio.

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The first few weeks of January are always a bit of a slow cranking back into gear. The sun dawdling with sluggish mornings in no particular hurry. The airwaves twittering regardless, with the morning chorus less patient to begin. Burblings of life echoed with a bunch of firsts. The hazel catkins, overarching tassels of twitch along with the first nod of snowdrops. And then this. Ten paces to the left of the gate into the field and beyond, and always the first of the purple spears.

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It’s rained. An inordinate amount. Not just in the past few weeks, but throughout last year. 46 inches fell in 2019, which give or take the usual pendulum swings, is still 6 - 8 inches above ‘average.’ But then a cold snap ushers back the eagerness of any early promise of Spring. Usually in late February or March going by the rhythm of the past few years. Toppling the flowers, but it’s not this which makes @joshua_sparkes all of a jitter. It’s the grass. Outpacing itself in the wet and the warmth, and taller than it should be in March for the yellow rattle to come into its own. An essential spark for the whole chain reaction that follows as its the yellow rattle that will keep the grass in check and allow the wild flowers to flourish. But snowdrops for now.

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Even with the lengthening days, what with the mist, the fog and the murk, the light has been scantily spread. The owls towooing in the dark with only the occasional glimmer from the skirts of the hedgerows and a clump of snowdrops. The year at its darkest in many ways, which is when the countryside squeeze box rasps into life. A full moon cider shed session mooted and a more musical wassail to follow.

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The fog wound its fingers around the afternoon - always a tighter interlaced grip up on the hill nearby. Even with a vague possibility of fog, and it’s absolute surety. Its new mood to stay around for a minute or so longer each day, curtailed by a thick blanket, and the afternoon was all but swallowed up. Not so bleak when the blanket is stitched with pink.

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A furry coating of fluffed up buds has erupted, and it’s the story of life you painstakingly tried to recreate when knee high, with scrunched up balls of tissue paper jammed onto twigs with an overly enthusiastic daub of pva glue. A version of Spring, out paced by the real thing. The perfumed daphne and hamamelis, the pockets of cyclamen and clumps of snowdrops. The mud too. Probably not as ingrained in the classroom as it is in January’s landscape. But at least pinks and silvers in with the brown, and plumes of greenish gold.

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Somewhere between December and January the days became one elongated blur. And in no particular hurry either. A mindset neatly summed up by watching these sheep. Somehow very Sunday. Somehow very January.

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The season of mud wrestling has began. A ground hugging shuffle propelled forward by the elbows. ‘Snowdrop fancying,’ as it’s sometimes called suggests a delicate art, whereas the reality is anything but.

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It has been a warm few weeks. Dank dressed up with decoration, but still warm. Warm enough for a few stoic roses to still be in bloom, and for a nasturtium to caterpillar crawl its way across a two foot stretch of earth. Without an icy blast to obliterate the last few breaths of Summer, there’s still something of September hanging on to hand over the baton to January.

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Twelfth night is usually the full stop in the festivities, but unpeeling the layers bit by bit at least softens the starkness with a preamble. The bare walls slowly undressed much like December into January in the garden. Clean lines and wide open space, but the details in the blank canvas easier to hawk. The air drenched with daphne odora and hamamelis, buds and shoots and the first nod of snowdrops.

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There was only one in the flock, momentarily interested, by the intrusion, before grass munching resumed. Up until last Sunday, it was an unbroken 16 days of rain (according to @juliankennard ‘s contraption of copper pipes and pots). A full 60 ml falling in 3 of those days. But now, it’s a different mood altogether. Gauzy strands of sunshine and the morning leaning forward to let just a little more light in.

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The ivy has started to curl in on itself, and the festive sprigs, more crunchy by the day. The season wrapped in festive red and green, but with unfurlings of another season already. Into the brown, an almost lurid splash of daffodil yellow already gathering ranks in a nearby local village.

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Father Christmas popped in last night, muttering something about his menu of choice; mince pies on the warm side. A dash of cream and a tot of whiskey. The questions and answers flew back and forth, and not just from the children. The air thick with nostalgia. Christmas past and Christmas present.

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A week, two weeks ago - somewhere in a tail spin of busy, @fordefrankie and her wardrobe of hats.

Instagram post 2203644245452106626_1249296954 $A ruler never helped much when fathoming the value of ‘x’ or ‘y,’ or finding out the speed ‘Matt’ would theoretically need to be travelling at to arrive in time for Christmas lunch. An answer to be wrung out of convoluted questions, with no extra points ever given for consideration of traffic or striking off into the hinterlands to explore a maze of B roads as an alternative. Even after exams have finished, maths has a way of insidiously creeping into the day to day. And not just with the practical either. The angle of the sunshine noted in recent weeks, as well as the distance between the sun and the horizon. A fraction, from tomorrow, which will be slowly increasing.$

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