The countryside is currently drab and dormant and much given over to mud, so most of the pleasure in a winter walk comes from the promise of what awaits on returning home. Coming back home after a chilly walk in the murk and mist is a delight; closing the door on the cold; peeling off layers of damp, muddy clothes and changing into warm, comfy and cosy things; cupping your chilled, weather reddened hands around a mug of hot tea and snuggling down by the fire is blissful.
But there is still beauty and colour to be found out there, even in the depths of Winter:
- The beech leaves holding fast to the trees and bright with the colour of a polished copper kettle;
- the red ember glow of the holly berries still held deep in the dark, prickly heart of hedges;
- the vibrant green skirts of moss that the trees wear in wet, wintry weather;
- and the sky, a constant shifting canvas of colour, most spectacular at dawn, but beautiful too when the watery sunshine pierces pearly cloud and outlines the skeletal forms of the bare branched trees.
This scant scattering of colour is not quite enough though, so I am eagerly anticipating signs of spring starting to show, and hope to find the first snowdrops soon as a sign that the greening of the woodlands is coming.
In Little Cotton Rabbit news there is not yet much to tell from here, but there are exciting goings on happening at Lucy Locket Land. Lucy had the brilliant idea to create some special kits throughout this year which mix my animal patterns with her own wonderfully imaginative and creative additions.
In January she had the mice dressed as Arfur the Handymouse and Martha the Mousekeeper and these kits proved to be so popular that they are currently sold out. Februarys kits will be the pigs, so it will be exciting to see what they'll be doing and I can't wait to see what other creative fun Lucy comes up with for the other animals over the rest of the year. Here's a link to her instagram where she's posting teasers for future kits, and a link to her shop where the kits are sold.
Images copyright Lucy Locket Land and used with permission.
