Natural nuggets of wonder in the mizzle

Using nature's joys to guide me through hard, dark days

Hello, I’m Rachel. I write about nature and creativity to encourage connection and wellbeing. This is one of my regular posts about noticing nature and finding connection. To read more - go to my homepage and click the noticing nature tab.

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I’m here, I disappeared into a pile of leaves/vortex/overwhelm for a few days. Seems to be happening quite a lot at the moment but words continue to pop into my head and knowing that there are people who like reading my words nudges me back to my computer (in a good way!)

It’s little daily doses of nature I want to write about today and how they are helping me through winter.

Yep, here in the temperate Northern Hemisphere, it is now winter. Not that the weather always seems so, we are flitting between autumnal double-figure temperatures and more ‘seasonal norms’ of single figures and winter storms (I’m referring to Celsius temperatures for the South East of England!) But regardless the short amounts of daylight and the sculptural winter elegance of the bare trees signal winter regardless.

I love winter, yet - my body doesn’t approve of certain aspects of it. This year is particularly hard in the run up to Christmas. So getting outside, even just to my little local spots is even more important to bring some structure, light, and joy. I’m also writing a separate post about some of the other things I’m doing, but I’m trying to cut down the length of my epic missives so this one is just about a quick wander finding natural nuggets of wonder on a walk this morning.

Nature still has many joys to find. I always seek them out wherever I can, those pockets of urban everyday joys but when the outside world doesn’t seem to have much to offer, it can really help.

And so, this morning, once the first sips of tea had brought me to life (along with the new daylight lamp - more on that in the next post) I decided to get up and out - despite the rain, grey and cold. That’s what clothes are for. Tucked inside my big coat, with gloves, scarf, and fluffy socks, I set out to the cemetery. And that meant going past some of my familiar strangers.

Thomas Winward

introduced me to this wonderful term.

The fox in the car park

We might have people or places we recognise in our local areas, but maybe you also have non-human familiar strangers, maybe they aren’t strangers anymore?

There’s the patch of brambles, dog rose, and valerian that brightens up a tiny patch of land between some houses. The front garden full of shrubs that often hosts chattering sparrows but which was sadly silent today. Saving their energy for a better foraging day I guess. I cross the busy road, darting between cars taking their occupants on the daily commute. Then, once inside the old flint wall - quiet descends. The roar of the cars is still there, but the trees, and the foilage all act as a muffler against the human made noises. My shoulders relax, a sigh of relief I didn’t know I was holding.

I would love to see the foxes, even better the badgers that I know live here, but only because of the scrapes they leave in the earth in their search for breakfast. In reality, I know the mizzle (a wonderful Middle English weather word for fine rain) will be keeping much of the fauna tucked away. They don’t have the luxury of being able to put wet socks and gloves on the radiator and then huddle under a blanket with tea.

So my first tiny wonders are from the foliage. Of the few trees still hanging on to their yellow leaves and the architectural ivy berries reminiscent of some kind of chemical formula diagram (is that just me?)

Unlike other berries, ivy is one of the last to ripen, I’ve yet to see any glistening black ready for the birds to eat.

Then there are the sculptural seedheads, remarkably still mostly standing upright despite the recent storms. Today it was the usually fluffy seedhead silhouettes that caught my eye, their damp white strands standing out against the grey and brown.

Not sure what this is/was, something that gardeners might call a weed because it’s so good at growing, but which is also good at being sculptural in winter.

At first, it didn’t seem like I’d find much else than floral wonders. But once further into the green, I stopped and listened. Mostly it was frustratingly unidentifiable contact calls, only punctuated by slightly more obvious blackbird alarm calls, usually accompanied by one darting from one shrub to another. But then, I tuned into flittering in the trees as something small darted away and my stillness was rewarded by a couple of minutes of watching a tiny wren methodically pick its breakfast off the boughs of a yew. Sadly impossible to photograph with a phone so you’ll just have to believe me.

By now my shoes were reminding me they aren’t waterproof anymore, so I started weaving along the many paths through the trees and tombs. Sadly I needed to do a bit of a litter pick - of deflated, starting to degrade balloons I presume someone had used in a memorial. A lovely thing for a few minutes, but exceedingly bad for the local wildlife.

On the way out, I noticed signs that winter is a time of getting ready not just dying back. Bright green buds shone out from unknown shrubs and green shoots of daffodil leaves were spiking their way through the leaf litter. That reminds me - I really should plant the bulbs I have for my garden!

Signs of the seasons still working hard

On my way out, I’d finally started warming up, so pushed back my hood, holding my face up to the elements. Yes, it was raining, yes it was a cold north wind. It may be cheesy to say but it does blow the cobwebs away. I had wistfully watched a youtube video of Scottish Winter Munro climbing during breakfast, missing that feeling of being up in the mountains (Rachel Montgomery) but it turns out you can still get a dose of that wild elemental energy in a cemetery in Brighton.

It would be all too easy to let these joys pass me by, to put headphones on, be head down buried in my hood or even looking at my phone. But noticing these joys brings so much to my day. I walked home, in need of a cup of tea and my slippers, but with a smile on my face feeling ready to get on with my day.

Do you have any local spots for spotting natural wonders? Are there any familiar non-human strangers that are now friends? If not - maybe something to spot the next time you are out and about?

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Until next time,