76. Is the Grass Greener? An ode to winter colours in Scottish Borders

Thursday 9 March 2023

It’s -4 ℃ and outside there’s a chilly breeze, the clouds are low and grey-white and there’s a feeling of worse weather to come (I say that having read various weather reports so I think it’s inevitable). But then, as always seems to happen here, I just keep looking out the window at all the natural loveliness. This morning, I realised that I probably talk more about the challenges of living here (in winter) than the benefits. So far, even without water and heating at times – though the week without water I just lived through vicariously while I was away for work – neither of us has faltered in our enjoyment of living here.

A few days ago, we finally met our second closest neighbours and had a chat with the two of them while all standing outside in the sun. They are also from England and moved up here four years ago. We all enthused about the beautiful, peaceful area we are lucky enough to live in. They repeatedly beamed and said, “You’re going to love summer”. They seemed unenamoured by winters here. That Chris and I have enjoyed elements of winter here, we think is a good sign that somehow we will actually get to love it more by the time it’s summer, though I hope we still appreciate elements of winter ahead of next winter.

What’s been glorious about winter (meteorological definition of winter as December, January and February) is the colours on the hills. I have always associated the countryside in winter as being shades of brown and muted greens. Here, I’m convinced the colours and scenery can’t get better, even in spring and summer. The bracken is a lovely burnt copper colour, the mosses are a deep, bright green, the wintered heather is a kind of purple-brown, grass is a lush green, the sitka spruce forests are all conifer-green, long grasses and weeds are a pale, warm, very light brown, there are a lot of red-tinged dogwood shrubs and beech hedges, which are still clinging on to some of their dull-copper leaves, and since late January there have been more bright white and green snowdrops draped over banks and along the roadside than I have ever seen. Then, when the sun comes out, everything seems to absorb the brightness of the sun. I have not really edited many photos I have taken of scenery in the glorious, low winter sun because the colours look amazing straight out the camera. As for frost and snow covering all that, to me it is as beautiful as it can get. And we have views of almost all elements of the above out of the windows of our house.

A lot of the other positives are merely because we have a house that is quite a lot bigger than our flat in London and it makes a difference that we chose this house because we loved it as soon as we saw it. The flat, because it’s shared ownership and because the block wasn’t signed off when I committed to buy a quarter of it; I had never even seen it until I was shown round it a week or so before collecting the keys. We would never have chosen that flat in that location (by a main road and train lines), in that block or even in Lewisham. It’s a strange thing, shared ownership. My experience was basically that you get what you can get (very long story) and you get a mortgage to ‘buy’ part of it, but ultimately you’re just renting at a cheaper price than a private rental and have security of knowing no landlord can ask you to move out.

Anyway, that was a tangent. I am far too easily diverted. I’ll continue with the many positives not related to the beautiful scenery and the enjoyment we have from the house another day.