winter – Maddie Grigg

January has already been a mixed month here in West Dorset, with cold, cold weather and blue skies at the start of it (hooray!) and then miserable rain and wind (boo!), which kind of reflects the way many of us feel in the weeks after Christmas.

The festive season passed me by without major incident and now the forward-face of the dual-headed Janus dominates our lives as The Good Ship 2025 slips its mooring and floats off into the past.

In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, frames, and endings (Wikipedia).

Whilst some of us are celebrating the arrival of new little people, it’s been a rough old twelve months for some, with Christmas and New Year anything but merry.

Life is hard, and even more so when you lose something or someone dear to you.

It doesn’t help when the outside world is going through tumultuous times which appear to be never-ending.

I’ve stopped listening to news bulletins. They’re full of multi-daily doses of negativity which make us all feel so angry and/or helpless. The chatter and backbiting on social media is even worse, with entrenched views constantly in a bitter battle with the voices of sanity and rational reason.

I heard on the news this morning that people tend to book their holidays in January because it gives them something to look forward to during these dark and dreary months.

I can well believe it.

The best thing so far this month has been the remains of the Wolf Moon shining over the village green in a three-way chorus with the lights of the community Christmas tree and the phone box library.

And on another positive note, we came third in the pub quiz, the morning cuppa tastes even better in the mugs my brother bought us for Christmas and I’ve lost four pounds since Christmas.

Roll on blue skies and warmth.

That’s about it.

Love, Maddie x

It’s the day after the clocks went back and it’s one of those Sundays that seems to have gone on and on.

I was up early and did all the ironing, fed the dogs, order a dog harness, water bowl, poo bags and three motion sensor lights for the landing, made a pot of tea, scored eight on my daily popquiz – Popquizza.com – and finished an episode of The Rest Is Politics US before the clock showed seven-fifteen.

By eight o’clock, I’d walked the dogs and was ready for breakfast.

I’ve managed to tick loads of things off my to-do list, although by three o’clock this afternoon I was flagging and the dogs were doing circles because they were so hungry.

Mr Grigg has dug up four lots of leggy lavender for me to replace, and there is more planting to come.

I’ve also gone mad with the bulbs again, ordering with gay abandon from Farmer Gracy and then bricking it when a massive box the size of Matabeleland arrived on the doorstep with a smug look on its face.

It’s half term in Dorset this coming week but no doubt the weather will be dreadful, so the chance of me finding room for 90 narcissi bulbs is pretty remote.

Two years ago, I ordered so many tulips I had to enlist the support of Number One Son and the tiny grandson who waddled around in dear little wellies and was armed with a lethal dibber.

We managed to plant them all but, of course, I was away when they flowered, so I missed the lot.

With just five days of October left, it’s been a busy month.

And now the nights are darker, it’s time for slowly simmered stews, log fires and a ridiculous binge on all four series of Stranger Things to remind myself of the plot and premise before the new one drops at the end of November.

I’m going to try to pull my socks up and blog at least twice a week, but as my late mother used to say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

That’s about it.

Maddie x