As winter wraps its harsh, icy fingers around the land, slowness is the sentiment it seems we should all be adopting. Living in cyclicality. Sleeping like the trees until a warm sun returns. But I’ve stepped into this blustery new year with the spirit of spring — optimistic, filled with a sense of budding potential.

It’s late autumn now. The leaves have almost fallen and are returning, full circle, to humus on the earth. Usually, autumn signals a quietening — the vibrancy of summer dying in a dazzle of gold, bronze and brown. But this autumn, for me, carries a different feeling on its cold wind.

I’ve loved walking in the sun these past weeks — by the coast, sticky in the heat, and in the cool cloak of the forest. Summer has always felt to me like the beating heart of the year. Landscapes alive with colour, shimmer and sound. Even the storms have more aliveness to them; the rain more fragrant, the wind wild and warm.

Emerging into spring, something feels different. I’m not talking about the usual sense of optimism that the turning of the year brings, but a deeper, more energised kind of excitement that is notably new. I wonder whether ‘wintering’, proper, really did help me to recuperate more fully?

Last winter felt particularly murky. And we’re only halfway through this one. But I’m attempting to approach this year’s dark season with a different mindset – one which, I hope, will make it not only more bearable but perhaps even enjoyable.