Great Expectations

We are all supposed to go out for a Boxing Day walk, like Good King Wenceslas, today being St Stephen's Day - the 'Feast of Stephen'. It's bizzare that this 1,000-year-old legend of a Bohemian duke (never actually a king) who trudged through the snow giving alms, with his page following in his footsteps, has become a popular English carol - even though it has nothing to do with Christmas. It's a lively tune and memorable words, and it conjures up an image of the cold, snow-bound winter nights that the English long for Christmas to be, even if it seldom is

Certainly not this year, when we started to worry that the overflow food from the fridge, stored in the shed, might be getting too warm; and I fetched and carried, as required for each meal, dressed in shirtsleeves. We took our designated stroll in late afternoon. The wind has dropped, the warm air is sodden with moisure and we appear to be in a three-day fog

The goats are bright enough to stand out in the gloom; the ghostly trees on the other side of the field, not so much. The hazel (extra) in the patch of land beyond our boundary, responding to the warmth, has opened its catkins already. It will not get much dispersal of its pollen in the still days to come. If we are to have 'deep and crisp and even', or 'the rude wind's wild lament', we will have to wait a while