'Now o'er the one half-world . . .

. . . Nature seems dead’ wrote Shakespeare*. He was talking about night, but the words could equally well apply to winter, and they’ve been running through my brain for the last few weeks. (That’s an old-fashioned education for you, when we had to learn chunks of plays and poetry.) Nature only seems dead however, and if you look closely – as I was doing yesterday because I wanted to try out my new camera – there is all sorts of evidence that nature is far from dead, even on a bleak January day.

* Macbeth Act Two, scene I, lines 49-50

Pink and grey-green lichen on top of a gatepost

Holly in the hedge: glossy old leaves and bright-green new ones

The ubiquitous gorse

Lime-green moss on a shady bank