January 2023 News from No.fifty6. The Somme in Winter Splendour.
Posted on 31st January 2023 by Julie and David Thomson in General News.
January brings with it the promise of new beginnings, and we certainly hope 2023 is a good one for all the No.fifty6 community. We know some of our friends are facing various difficulties at the moment, so they are of course in our thoughts for better times.
During January there is a stark beauty to the landscape here, it is laid bare and invites you in to explore even on the coldest day. The farmers continue to work, ploughing, seeding, and already some areas have a green thin coat, new life emerging. Others have a rich deep brown of furrows of life-giving soil.
On our walks we see new growth appearing. In the cemeteries the first shoots of spring flowers are breaking ground and the days are drawing out, it is now gone 5.30pm before Marge the chicken goes go to bed.
A few flurries of snow in January, but nothing that has really settled, but many frosty mornings. It has been cold, misty, damp - the landscape often shrouded in lingering mist or fog which caresses the valleys as if winter is not yet ready to give up its icy grip. There have been blue sky days too, but whatever the weather we wrap up and get out to walk whenever we can. A sign of the cold weather is that there are more deer visible on our walks, coming closer to civilization. Always wary and moving as a herd. Beautiful to see.
As we walk the winter landscape we think of those soldiers who were out in the trenches in January and February 1917. And one can’t help but think of those in Ukraine today, trench warfare on our continent again.
