Resting, resting, 123 🎤✨️

Tis the season to do... absolutely nothing.

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you’re sitting on the sofa with a mug of something delicious and plans to snuggle down soon. That’s the winter spirit! 🫖

I've heard a lot of talk over the past few weeks about how the 'real' new year actually starts in spring. And the word on the street is exactly right.

The majority of the world now follows the Gregorian calendar, which was introduced in the 16th century and has twelve *bizarrely numbered* months. Before this, we had the Julian Calendar (which began in 45 BCE), and before that the Roman Calendar. But if we go back even further into the depths of time, the people of the land would once have followed a lunar calendar with New Year falling at the end of January or the start of February. This lines up perfectly with the Pagan festival of Imbolc.

It has never really made sense to me why we start our yearly acts of renewal and rebirth in the depths of the 'bleak midwinter'. This year, I know plenty of people who are choosing to only set their New Year's resolutions later on in the year in line with the signs of spring or with the lunar calendar.

Winter is just not the time for rebirth.

I always see the start of the year as Imbolc (meaning ‘ewe’s milk’ in Ancient Irish), when the first shoots and buds begin to appear. There are a lot of tubby-looking sheep in the fields close to my house and I look forward to keeping an eye on them over the next month to count those new little lambs. My tulips and crocuses are already ahead of the game – fingers crossed we don't get too much frost to scare them away!