When I woke up this morning to another chilly Winters day looking out over the roof tops of Surrey at everyone’s chimneys stood like pillars smoking away, I’m reminded how great the last year has been and felt I should reflect on it a little below. Soon we will be coming up to our “moving home anniversary” and last week we had our purchased new home anniversary, we had a few months to decorate before moving in you see. I think we spent quite a lot of our weekends living here in Surrey in the spare room and London during the week over that time. It was quite exciting those weekends, living on ready meals/takeaways, garage sandwiches and wine in plastic champagne flutes. Ariella always slept very well in her room snuggled into her travel cot and I think it helped so much with her transition when we finally did “move in”, she wasn’t moving into the unknown but a room she had seen shaped just for her.
The Nuna travel cot (large version) is awesome by the way!
It’s absolutely beautiful in Surrey, I don’t know if we were just lucky with the weather in 2016 but the Seasons this last year have been defined. We moved in the Spring and the garden which is quite mature was blooming alive with vibrant pops of colour in very unexpected locations. I’d sit at my dressing table in the mornings, looking out at the garden with beautiful birds chirping away in front of me, foxes dashing across my window and a mass of every changing colour – I’d never really appreciated gardens until that point. I could tell what the day would hold just by looking out the window, whether it would be a cold day and the grass would be frosty or a lovely Summer’s morning. Every season is as it is told in books, this is something I’ve never really experienced before. When living in Bristol we used to get a lot of cloud, sure sometimes it would snow in Winter but usually it was pretty mild and grey – when it’s always grey it’s very hard to see the beauty in England. London it was warm, cold in Winter but comparatively warm to most places due to the build up of people, buildings and stuff.
Summer here is hot, just as you’d expect you get some rainy days but the warm days were lovely. We could eat outside a lot, it was – too warm – at times. Lighting up a BBQ on the terrace, lugging up the ice bucket to chill prosecco by twilight and watching dangling little fairy lights in the dark. Fond memories of Ariella paddling in her first little frog pool, splashing around in her Summer hat while Strawberries are growing (ready to go in the glass with the Prosecco) nearby.
Once Summer starts to wane Autumn arrives with a mass of beautiful leaves, where I grew up we had some trees in the road to mark the season change but it was never on the level of Surrey. The green is everywhere and you are confronted with a mass of ambers and red, it’s impossible to forget that Autumn has arrived here. People dig out their Autumnal wreaths, they bring out pumpkins and Autumn treats. We watch fireworks shoot across the sky to mark firework night, the darkness starts to take over more of the day and you find yourself lingering indoors a little more to keep out the cold.
You can actually feel it here, have you every played the game “Animal Crossing” which was available on the Wifi and Nintendo DS? I loved that game, I enjoyed in the game watching the seasons change too.
Finally here we are in Winter, I actually love Winter. I love the build up to Christmas, I don’t even mind January – not really. As long as Winter is actually cold, cosy and maybe we see a glimpse of Snow that’s always been my view. Far too many Winter’s have passed in a grey, cloudy blip – boring Winter’s those are the ones I don’t like. Surrey has provided us with frost, snow, minus digits on the thermometer. For the first time in my life I’ve had to grit the pathways due to ice and the garden has had a layer of frost on it that has remained there for weeks.
I know that for some people they dislike one Season, or they only like one – Summer perhaps. But I’m one of those people who has a true appreciation for the way that they mark the changing of time. I think it’s rather beautiful and I’m glad that we live somewhere which seems to celebrate this change through nature, festivals, community and life. Soon January will be over and we will be closer to the Spring, only to repeat the cycle all over again. I’ve already heard the phrase “I can’t wait for Summer so we can do…” I love how we all live in tune with the Seasons.
What’s your favourite Season?
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