This Place: Stories Imagined - Story One - Holding

January has a way of arriving without ceremony ... and staying longer than you expect.

I wake before the alarm most mornings in winter. The body learns the light, even when the light is barely there. There’s a particular cold that settles into the joints at this time of year - not painful, exactly, just insistent. A reminder that I’ve been here long enough for the seasons to leave their mark.

The kettle goes on out of habit rather than thirst. Tea first ... always. I stand by the window while it boils, watching the dark loosen its grip on the yard. The sky shifts from black to something like old denim. That will do.

Outside, the ground is holding yesterday tightly. Mud remembers every footstep. I know where it will give way and where it won’t, though I still misjudge it sometimes. Winter keeps you honest. You can’t bluff your way through January.

The first round is always the same ... gates, water, feed. The small, unspoken agreements that keep a place from unravelling. I’ve done these checks in worse weather than this. I’ve done them when everything felt easier, too. January levels things out ... it doesn’t care how you’re feeling.

The animals are awake before I am, they watch with mild reproach as I move about, steam lifting from their backs and I apologise to them out of courtesy, not because they require it. They don’t hold grudges. They remember patterns, not excuses.

In the barn, there’s a crate pushed up against the wall. It arrived yesterday, earlier than expected and I slid it out of the way without opening it. Some things are better left until the light improves ... or until someone else decides it’s time.

The radio murmurs behind me ... weather, prices, voices arguing softly about things that don’t apply here. Cold without drama, apparently, grey holding steady. I could have told them that myself.

People talk about spring more in January than at any other time of year. They always have. I used to be one of them, counting days, sketching plans too early, imagining warmth as if it were a promise rather than a habit. These days I let spring come to me. It’s more reliable that way.

One glove is missing, again. I pat my pockets out of instinct, already knowing the outcome. It will turn up in April no doubt, tucked inside a boot or hanging from a gate as if it’s been there all along. I pull my hand into my sleeve and carry on. You learn what’s worth stopping for.

There’s a moment mid-morning when the place feels suspended ... not asleep, not fully awake. I pause then, more often than I mean to. It isn’t sentimentality though, it’s a kind of stock-taking. What’s still here, what needs watching, what can wait.

Others move through this place differently. I see what holds, they notice what’s coming. Neither of us is wrong.

A figure crosses the yard, bundled and brisk and we exchange a nod, no words needed. January discourages conversation. it prefers recognition, proof that you’re not alone in the keeping of things.

At the edge of the field, the trees stand stripped back to their true shapes. I like them best like this ... no disguise, no performance. You can see exactly how they’ve grown, the bends where they met resistance, the places they chose a different direction and carried on anyway. There’s comfort in that for me.

By the time the light has done its best, the day is already turning. This is as much as January offers, and I’ve learned to accept it without complaint. Later, someone will say it’s too early to see anything yet and they’ll be right. Someone else will disagree quietly, hopeful despite themselves and I won’t argue with either of them.

Things are put away carefully as afternoon thins not because they’re precious, but because they’ll be needed again. Care now saves trouble later. That’s a lesson you only learn by ignoring it once or twice.

As the dark edges back in, the place draws inward, doors closed, boots lined up and the faint satisfaction of having kept things going, even if nothing looks different. That’s the work this season asks of you. Progress doesn’t announce itself in January. Sometimes it’s just the fact that everything is still here. And tomorrow, that will be reason enough to begin again ...though I suspect others will tell it differently.

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Next week: the same day, seen through different eyes.