If January gets its name from Janus ? the two-faced keeper of the door ? it can see back into last year and forward through this. Whichever way it faced so far, apart from a couple of brief moments of sunshine, January looked glum. Murky grey skies and pouring rain closed all around us. Wind through tall pines did not sound like sighing ? more like the hissing of an old bus door. Lone buzzards hunched on the stag-headed tops of oak trees, glowering into fields. The green lines of cereal seedlings struggled from the mud, each leaf blade pinched off by frost. Small birds sealed themselves in hedges. Wood pigeons, with a sudden burst of firecracker wings, took to the air ? grey birds through grey sky ? and then found another beech tree to hole up in like outlaw gangs.
Reminders of the bitter time remained in the woods: thick ivy stems which snaked around tree trunks had been peeled by strong teeth ? rabbits, squirrels and deer too ? to get at the yellowy white sapwood, still pumping juice out of frozen ground. Nothing ate the ivy leaves under the snow, but the dog's mercury, which is fairly poisonous, had been nibbled down. Looking west, through the dripping trees of the Edge towards the meanders of the river Severn some miles away, what little light there was shone on the mercury flash of flood. All the squelchy mud and field runoff ? the drains, culverts and brooks ? were headed for the river.
Then, January's door ajar, in poured a soft, fine winter sunlight casting long shadows across the hill, inspiring birds to wheel out their creaky little calls. There's a sense, somewhere behind the sinuses (as if recovering from a cold), where the world feels warm and lively again, hopeful even. It may not last. Janus could open the door again and anything could come in.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/21/country-diary-wenlock-edge
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