I’m starting to write this a day early – it’s Thursday. New Year’s Day. I’ve chosen a picture. I take this picture every year and I would invite you to go out and find this tiny flower. The way to find it is to look for hazel catkins that are loose and releasing their pollen. To start with the catkins are tight and short, and then sometime in the next month or so (in England) they will become longer and more open, and a dusty pollen will be carried out on the wind. This pollen is looking for the little red beauty pictured here. They are very small and joyful, with their curled red petals. When the pollen lands on them they will take it in and make a hazel nut! It makes me smile every year when I find these little gems, and remember my mother showing one to me so many years ago. Go looking! The one in the picture is in my garden in a very sheltered place, the ones along the canal are not ready yet, the catkins are still tight. The catkins are the clue, but do start looking now. It will help you to get your eye in!

New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, it’s the time for resolutions. I decided last night to get an app to track the books I read. Storygraph was recommended. I tried to sign up. It turned out I am already a member, since January 2024. One book was entered.

I pressed on regardless and entered a few books I have recently completed and a couple I have just started. Maybe at the end of the year I will have a list, but I’m not holding my breath. One book I have just finished is The Tale of Two Cities. I read half of it earlier in the year and got stuck and left it, but I kept reading in book groups I am part of that it is so and so’s favourite Dickens. I had a serious case of man flu (a cold) and needed to rest under a rug in a comfy chair for a while and it seemed it might be a good companion. Oh, my, oh my! I have quite a good audiobook version, and also lovely bound set of Dickens complete works. I listened and read along. What a story! It was incredible. I finished it yesterday, reading the last few chapters without the audio version. Louise asked me if it was now my favourite, and it could be, apart from the stumble in the middle when I left it. I think because of that that accolade must go to Dombey and Son, or maybe Bleak House.

I’m a bit of an incompetent reader. I’m also half way through Barnaby Rudge and Oliver Twist, as well as Drive your Plow over the Bones of the Dead. I will continue with this last one now, it was eclipsed by the Tale of Two Cities. I may or may not get back to the others; I do know what stopped me in their cases – the Reform riots were too similar to the riots in Barnaby Rudge, and with Oliver Twist I stopped because I knew something bad was going to happen. I’m a bit of a woos sometimes.

Oh. dear, this is all about books. Other resolutions are available, involving yoga, dancing, morning pages, good sleep patterns, exercise, cooking, being a vegan for January, reading Rob Roy because we’re going to Scotland, being a poet, being a writer, growing more and more vegetables, writing a proper blog between the Friday ones, say every third Monday, Atomic Habits, talking to neighbours about extending my forest garden into their gardens…

This last one is the big one. It’s something I actually intend to do – not that I don’t actually intend to do all the others, but you know – Let me explain a little. Last winter I did a tree grafting course and I made three trees, two apples and a pear, and they all took. Which is great, but my garden is already full. So I want to plant them in neighbouring gardens. So I need to present the idea to my neighbours in such a way that they think it’s a great idea, which it is, and get them to agree. So the subject of my first ‘every third Monday’ thing will be extending my forest garden into the neighbourhood and it will be called ‘Communising the Forest’. Or something like that. You heard it first here!

So, 08.04 on Friday morning. Blog done. New Year off to a flyer. Very good wishes for the year ahead to all who read this, and much appreciation. Thank you.