Frosted...

Notes of December - Week 4

Hello again, I feel as though I’m bombarding you all with letters, but this is the final post of 2024 so in a way that makes it special doesn’t it?

That’s what I thought…

I won’t be writing a round-up for the end of the year, nor making any resolutions for the next—numbers and promises equal stress—I will just let each day roll out as it will whether it comes wrapped in high notes or low, embrace it, love it or hate it and move on.

Rosie gave me a gift for Christmas. It rendered me utterly and tearfully speechless; an exquisite book of thirty hand-drawn ink sketches copied from photographs I have taken over the past few years. It was a gift given with love, worthy of so much more. This—to be treasured for ever—gift, in it’s darkest of blue fabric, waits for a quiet moment to present itself that I may enjoy each page, in awe, with love, alone. There are blank pages still to be filled, perhaps—I hope—for future birthdays and Christmas’s. Without doubt it is the most beautiful and precious thing ever held, not including my children.

@rosiemawhinney it is a rare and beautiful thing to feel so at ease with another human soul that you find yourself floating on a warm high of such ecstatic euphoria you don't want to come down. You are that warmth. Thank you for being that human soul 🤍

Without further ado—or tears—here are the last days of a year that has literally flown so if anyone knows how to fix the brakes please comment below!

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Woodland art - unsigned in La Forêt de Vaysse - Cransac

December 26/27 The grey blanket of Christmas Day’s fog has lifted entirely, sunlight glances through the cracks in the shutters dancing with a rather horrifying gazillion dust motes flitting above oak planks as I walk across a freezing floor. Stove is cold but obviously feeling friendly; the fire is roaring quickly and smokelessly. A relief! While the rest of the house still sleeps Rosie helps clear away the debris of The Day before—why is Christmas always so messy—we talk about plans for the year ahead, hers, numerous, mine, few and far simpler by comparison. We plan the day in front of us too. We have only two days left together and all we want to do is walk with birdsong, under the winter blue sky.

Over two days we walk just shy of 40 kilometres, covering almost every track accessible on the hill. Then, take a rare car trip to a different hill.

The¹Forêt de la Vaysse is a vast expanse of undulating land covered by Robinia—false acacia—trees, it’s paths well trodden. The name Vaysse comes from the Occitan “vaïssa” meaning hazelnut tree. I don’t see a single one but Robinia and Pine trees line every path and the light, oh the light is extraordinary.

Through a frosty lens…

December 28 A slow and bitterly cold morning, the wind is soft but biting, Rosie and I brave the cold to take one last walk together along the edge of the hill in frosted, coppery dawn light. I want the hour we are together to last for three but it ends—inevitably—and all I can think is, May is so far…

December 29 The sun at this time of year is by seasonal right deceptive. Sunday morning I can feel the air is as icy as the ground before I leave the shelter of the yard, no matter the sun is already a huge silver ball glowing over the hill, it is too cold. I spend the morning writing emails to aunts and uncles in front of stove—feeling magnanimous, whilst understanding I should have written before Christmas, not after so therefore not true—stay there until after lunch hoping for less deceit in the colour of the sky deciding that it actually doesn’t matter because all sunshine should be revered and really, how can I remain in doors a second longer!

Seth and I take a very different walk. He has to have music! He is almost sixteen and will win the can’t-we-just-chat-and-enjoy-the-sounds-of-nature argument before it even begins. We take the music, not headphones or ear-pods, a mobile speaker he attaches to his belt; a gift from my dear old friend Roger.

Seth says, “we can talk and listen at the same time”.

“Listen to what?” I reply.

We walk and talk and listen, I don’t hear any bird song, or deer bellowing or even any hunters but his taste in music could be worse and his chattering is a delight.

When we reach the bottom of the valley the air begins to freeze once again, but caught in the last of the suns rays are winter flies—I still don’t know what these enchanting luminescent insects are called—I say to my nearly grown up son,

“Look the fairies are defrosting their wings!” He has to look at them twice just to be certain I’m not serious!

Frozen

December 30/31 - Some brief final words of the year.

I am becoming acclimatised. Two more frigidly cold, glorious mornings follow and I don’t shiver the second I set foot outside the door.

When I feed my sheep, their ears are frosted at the tips, their backs too, as if overnight they have found the equivalent of a poodle parlour for sheep and dyed all their wool grey.

Flocks of pigeons are startled from two separate places as I walk through frosted trees and their branches, though I think, in fact they are the same flock twice.

There has been a puddle of sunlight on the floor with dust motes dancing in its beams for five days. I decide I love dust motes.

For two entire afternoons, ecstatically alone, I work in my small patch of stolen woodland. Everything cut and cleared is returned - nothing is removed, nothing is added.

Mice continue to derange my sleep, but I have asked

David E. Perry

for the loan of a tiny shrike he has had the pleasure of lunching with who knows what to do with Mouse Toes.

All the snowflakes on my weather map have turned to rain. I still want to be where snowflakes fall…

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Too end the year—which cannot possibly happen without first sending my love and eternal gratitude to all of you who read and comment so kindly on these letters—all that remains is to wish you peace and good health and happy new days!

Imagine it’s you!

And, send tree hugs to you all

Susie X

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Some things beautiful I have loved this week:

One can forgive quite easily natures quirks when they are told so enchantingly by

David E. Perry

Mouse Toes

Kimberly Warner

not only writes extraordinarily beautiful essays, she makes videos with beautiful and extraordinary people!

Unfixed holidays

1. Within this forest are also relics left behind from the mining years, such as a tunnel and perforated rock. Recently, various artworks by an unknown artist have been erected through the trails. The forest is also home to “lou puech que ard”, the famous “Montagne qui brûle” and its natural underground combustion phenomenon: the emanation of gas charged with properties to treat rheumatism and osteoarthritis.