Gaia House Retreat Centre, Devon: At 8am the world is almost monochrome and gripped with cold, frost rimming every leaf. Gaunt trees, some decked with mistletoe, rear up in front of me like something from the Deep. The only dabs of colour are orange berries on the withered remains of wild irises dotted along the roadside. The sky is a not-yet-blue colour but yellowing in the East – probably the sun is up on the coast. A too-close blackbird is turning leaves, pausing only to give me the eye. It feels as though life is hanging on, waiting for the earth to turn another couple of degrees, then the blessed warmth will quicken blood and flood through tissue enabling the day long search for sustenance to start in earnest.

 

A cockerel in the valley sounds tinny and uncertain in the cold air. There is scattered applause from wood pigeons breaking cover. I am touched by a notice the folk on the corner have posted ‘To all who pass by…. wishing you good health, joy and blessings for 2017’.

The frost is not gone from the lawn until midday, despite three hours of weak sunshine. I circle the mottled trunk of the ancient plane tree which, like the aging body of an artist’s model, is slipping slowly into recline. Bunches of daffodil shoots poking two inches above the ground are like speed traps for unwary meditators. There is a flurry of bird calls now: nuthatch, goldfinch, robin, bullfinch and the distant laugh of a green woodpecker.

West Ogwell church, which is painted cream, otherwise looks plain and dependable; the sort of church that has pinned the English countryside together for centuries. Unused, a little damp and peeling, it still has has beautiful wooden box pews like something out of Thomas Hardy. The churchyard is ringed with horse chestnut, beech, evergreen oak and a cranky old hornbeam that is leaning perilously over the graves. On the headstones are solid English names like Bishop, Taylor and Gilbert. Several low granite enclosures are where nuns from the old convent were buried, sometimes six together without mounds, just discreet names on the curb stone: Sister Gladys, Edna, Maud, Dora and so on – names from my grandmother’s generation – modest women who gave their lives to God.

The afternoon is fading, Dartmoor reduced to a rusty smudge on the horizon, a couple of ragged tors still visible. By four o’clock the cold and darkness are closing in for the long night, and by eight the fog is as thick as smoke. In the bushes blackbirds are sounding the alarm – these conditions will prise open any weakness.

So to New Year’s Eve and we are sitting around a fire in the woods in companionable silence, a circle of flame-lit faces – some smiling others pensive. Tawny Owls are calling love to one another amongst the trees. We cast our regrets, hopes and aspirations into the flames and the sparks tower up, each one brilliant and brief in the endless stream. I feel in good company with Messrs Taylor and Bishop, Sister Edna and the rest as I enjoy my moment in the light.