Aconite Acolyte

And so here we are. All that Christmas jostling and shoving, and that was just to get to the bar. So we arrive in 2008, and those dull, dark days that so often welcome in a new year. But now the nights will start getting longer until spring breezes rustle through the first hawthorn buds in the hedgerows. I once lived in north east Northamptonshire, ten years in a Georgian gamekeeper's cottage, an isolated stone lodge against sombre woods. And once the cards had been taken down from their strings and the tree lights well and truly entangled for next year, it was always a particular joy in the first days of January to wander up the garden path through the 'orchard' as we euphemistically called it, to take a look at a patch of earth under a stubborn old greengage tree. And there, pushing up through the dead autumn leaves, would always be the first tight globes of winter aconite, gathering themselves into a carpet that would very soon burst into these yellow cups. I always took them to be the first sign of hope and renewal, and I share them with you to wish you a Very Happy New Year. (That wasn't too Patience Strong was it?)