Cold Snap

Stillness, soil and talking sense

The first week of 2026 has arrived with a proper snap of frost baring its teeth.

The field is iron-hard underfoot, blades of corn locked stiff in the cold, puddles sealed shut under sheets of ice. The sun hangs low, throwing long shadows and making colours electric. Powdery clouds drag themselves across the sky while birds retreat overhead.

I love the cold, mostly because you can armour yourself in scarves and jumpers and carry on. There is also nothing quite as satisfying as being absolutely frozen and coming inside to thaw red hands by the fire, or the almost spiritual relief of a piping-hot shower.

What I find most comforting is that this bleakness is essential. Winter isn’t an absence growth; it’s a necessary pause. The conditions that look harsh and lifeless are laying the groundwork for everything that comes next.

Frost does a thorough bit of housekeeping, reducing pest populations and knocking out overwintering nuisances like aphids and certain plant diseases, making way for a productive spring.

Fruit trees and bulbs rely on this cold too. Many need a proper winter chill to perform later on, apple trees especially. A cold January means stronger flowering and better fruit set. Good news for fellow apple tart lovers.

Freezing temperatures also break up compacted soil, improving drainage and making space for roots to stretch out when they’re ready.

We talk a lot about resilience as a human quality, but it also applies to plants. Gradual exposure to cold helps them harden off, becoming sturdier and better prepared. Trees and perennials enter dormancy now, conserving energy for spring, which makes our insistence on January self-reinvention feel slightly misguided.

I do, of course, have New Year’s resolutions, rehashing a few classics. Make more art. Start yoga. Become confident enough at driving to one day fulfil my dream of owning a Suzuki Jimny.

Despite all the resolution-setting, I’ve been reading how unnatural it actually is to treat January as a clean slate. Winter isn’t for blooming; it’s for pulling inward, taking stock, and resting.

Real renewal comes later with the Spring Equinox, which is a time of snowdrops splitting the soil and daffodils insisting on optimism, with longer evenings and milder days.

This year, the date is the 20th of March. It’s a time for stepping out of the stillness of winter and aligning yourself with the season of renewal.

It’s then we should be planting seeds of new dreams, rather than in the harsh months of January, when both we and the world are still resetting.

At the moment, it’s about embracing dormancy by reflecting, reworking and quietly plotting. No grand transformations yet. Just frost, patience, and the promise that something will grow from all this stillness.