A winter warmer
Recently, it was cold.
A deep, dry cold that makes you loathe to leave the comfort of your duvet. A cold that makes you want to tuck yourself in at night and stay snuggled down for as long as possible the next day. Scarves, hats and gloves are obligatory when you inevitably leave the house. Though I marvelled at the frost, formed in miniature fractals on every surface, I couldn’t bring myself to get outside in the mornings and enjoy the natural world in its frozen form. Finally, at the end of the week on a Friday morning, I got myself up before sunrise and headed to Port Meadow, on the edge of Oxford. The crisp air chilled my face as I walked through the suburban streets, and the cold slowly began to burrow its way into my skin. The sun hadn’t yet risen, but the world around me was coated in a grey, dawn light under an ice blue sky. When I arrived at Port Meadow, I found myself in the midst of a fairytale landscape covered in thick frost.
Entering through the gate, I saw the frozen shrubland stretched out ahead of me for miles. On the left, the river was guarded by a line of dormant trees, quiet in their slumber. Ahead, the usually waterlogged floodplain was frozen in ice. Far off, a blanket of fog hung low over the ground, concealing the horizon. Frost gripped the grass and the low-growing shrubs, its icy fingers making themselves at home in every nook. The land was still. As I approached the frozen floodplain, the ground crunched beneath my feet. A half-moon hung suspended in the empty sky and ice skaters played six feet beneath it on the frozen floodwater, delicately drifting across the ice, forwards and then backwards. A little leap and a careful landing.
As I walked, the skaters pranced, some less steady than others. A woman and her dog played together on the ice, small, jubilant specks in the distance. Snugly tucked into my trainers, my feet were nevertheless beginning to lose feeling. I walked on, only deciding to turn back when the hard earth completely gave way to endless ice that couldn’t be crossed. Doubling back across the meadow, I could see the brilliant red sun rising over the treeline, casting an ethereal pink hue over the ice. I returned via the river, which was not frozen, but lethargic and slow moving. When I came to the bridge, a thin mist floating over the water was suddenly set alight by the sunrise peeking through the trees that watched over it. A deep, glowing orange collided with wintry whites, greys and pinks. Burning embers on a bed of soft ash.
I left the wild magic of Port Meadow to head back home and the world around me began to thaw. Buoyant ice skaters were replaced with commuters, hunched from the cold as they made their way to work. The river was replaced with a gritted road, and the boundless landscape was replaced with grey concrete rising out of the ground. The sun had risen and it was another day. But, I was still cold. My hands and feet were frozen in position. Back in reality, I had work to do and deadlines to meet, though I didn’t want to think about any of that yet. Instead, breakfast: oats, peanut butter, banana and berries, accompanied by a hot cup of tea. The warm oats, combined with sweet fruits and velvety peanut butter was the perfect antidote to my cold hands and empty stomach.
Nothing warms my soul like a bowl of hot porridge on a cold winter’s morning. Nothing softens the break between magic and reality like taking the time to prepare and savour warming food.
