‘Tis the season of the ominous glove. An abandoned, single hand reaches up from the mud. Fingers stretch out awkwardly from branches, hoping to be retrieved by their absent owner. In the first weeks of January, Christmas trees join the gloves, spread across the pavement on bin day. Abandoned. The third snow of the season has already settled and thawed. I don’t know if that makes this a more normal winter in a wobbling climate, or if this too is extreme. I’m pleased to have felt the chill. Ice has to be good for our environment at this time of year. A sustained period of cold gives me hope. The grass holds on to its white hue all day. In the morning the fog is thick, the streets quiet. Only a few piercing whistles of birds tucked away in the pines cut through. Aston’s Eyot is frozen solid. The mud, the puddles too, firm under foot. A single crow caws. The stems of nettles, the heads of teasel, look glorious in their dusting of ice. My beard soon begins to freeze with the moisture of my own breath. The river isn’t frozen, I wonder if it ever has. The ice of the flooded field on the true right has cracked and split. A lone cormorant glides above the water. The tips of my fingers begin to tingle, the thinning gloves offering little protection. The fog never lifts. The ice never thaws.

Rachael got me a book about butter for Christmas, perhaps it’s better described as a butter recipe book. She says it’s because whenever she claims something tastes really good, I tell her it’s butter. I only remember doing this with eggs, which, to be fair, does account for 1/3 of all my meals. The first recipe in the butter book is unsurprising. It’s butter! One of the few remaining memories I have of infant school is making butter. The class passed around a jar of what I thought was milk, shaking it all the time until it separated and the butter began to solidify. Putting children to this task would have been much easier than me standing at the counter for 15 to 20 minutes whisking double cream. For a long time I don’t think anything is happening. Am I whisking wrong? Is there more than one way to whisk? Towards the end though, everything happens at once. The cream becomes thick, then wet as it separates before little globules of popcorn yellow butter clump together within the whisk. Soon enough there’s a puddle of milky liquid in the bowl. I wash my butter under the tap (a perfectly normal thing to do). Then I begin massaging more water through it, squeezing out the buttermilk until the water runs clear. Now I have butter! I thought I could roll it nicely in some greaseproof paper and cling film but the idea in my head is significantly better (someone else’s work) than the mess of paper and plastic I put in the fridge.

Rachael returns from her trip to the shop with three buckets of meal worms and two new bird feeders. I can’t exactly claim to be annoyed because she has also got the cheese she went out for. And I like watching the birds as much as she does, and I’ve a lot more time for it. The desk is by the back doors, the binoculars in the top drawer. All it takes is a glance outside, the flutter of small wings at the buffet of feeders and I’m reaching for the eyes. Bird watching in the garden is easier in winter. The trees are bare, there are fewer places to hide. Or there are more birds looking for an easy meal. We have a resident mob of starlings that clear the worms from one feeder every day. The rest of the snacks have a bit more life in them. A magpie, a wood pigeon, and a pair of collared doves make up the rest of the bigger visitors. I don’t know why the jackdaws on the street never bother to cross the line of house roofs. The wagtails I’ve seen picking on the pavement are also absent from the garden. Our small friends are made up of the regulars: the robin, sometimes two, the pairs of blue and great tits. Rachael is sure she’s seen a coal tit too, I want to verify this for myself. The long tailed tits, when they come, are a highlight. Little puffs on sticks. Rarely, a dunnock picks through the garden borders. The kites still glide overhead, the gulls too.

We’ve had another visitor. I could hear the yipping while I was in the bathroom, like a cat in distress, and probably a cat in distress. A big fox is nosing his way across the lawn. I wonder if he’s been spooking the birds of late. Rachael suspects he might be responsible for the pretty grim poos we’d been blaming on the neighbours cat. She’s convinced he’s looking for a spot to squat. He doesn’t, instead he surprises us both with a rather dignified leap on to the fence. He trots off to the shed roof where the cries start up again, and another fox joins him for a quick scrap. Usually, it’s the cats using the garden’s end to traverse the big green patch behind the houses. From the street, you wouldn’t know to find this wild strip at the rear.  The foxes disperse to who knows where, and the birds return for breakfast.  I don’t see our vulpine friends again but it’s nice to know they’re out there. It’s been a few years now since we were treated to cubs in the garden.

I remember. The early starts I when I first came home. Waking up at 05:30. Out the door at 06:00. Catching the sunrise, most days. I remember. The early starts on Te Araroa. Waking up when everyone else did. Watching them set out while I finished my second hot drink of the morning. I remember. The early starts required for tree planting. Waking up at 04:30. The hazy forcing down a first breakfast, pouring hot coffee on top. Waiting on the roadside for a lift that would eventually come. I remember. The early starts. No idea what the time was, only how cold my feet were. The need for so many blankets. The zip on my tent freezing shut. Opening up to the early dawn on the edge of the Australian Outback. I remember. People were doing this every day until only a few years ago. Getting up, going through the motions. Going to a different concrete building with different screens to do the same thing you could do from home. Once a week, I remind myself, it’s not so bad. It’s not so bad. The occasional blanket of fog settles across the city, applying a layer of atmosphere I otherwise find lacking. The haze of street lights allows the spires to emerge slowly from the gloom. Easier to believe the city is as old as it actually is when most of it is cast in darkness. On a morning journey into the office I am blessed with the first highlighter pink skies of the year. Streaks of clouds burn in the morning light. Fog still lingers over the river on the approach into Reading, but it is light again. There are never enough sunrises anymore. The fifth storm of the season, Eowyn, makes land tomorrow, but winter is moving towards spring. By the time I pass through Basingstoke it is already raining.