Christina Burdett, a member of our Stourbridge Community, is a talented writer with a strong connection to the natural world. This month, she has kindly shared extracts from her article for our Stourbridge Community newsletter. Her words perfectly capture this cold, dormant season and the signs of change slowly becoming visible in our landscape.
We certainly seem to be getting a jolly cold spell of wintry weather currently, with no end to it for much of this week.
It is often a good idea to take oneself out for a walk in the winter sunshine on a clear, still, fine day after a frost. One gets one’s healthy exercise this way. I was amazed at the number of people I did see going out for a winter’s walk with their dogs on Wednesday 31st December.
People think there is not much to see in the towns and in the countryside during these winter months, but if you know where to go and where to look there are actually things to see. If you go into the woodland areas you can see fungi and toadstools out in clumps. When I walk past someone’s small garden in Worcester Street not so long ago, I noticed little green spikes and clumps of them were sticking up from the earth. Crocus bulbs and snowdrop bulbs are starting to push up their green spikes up. A magnolia tree was showing its buds a little. Someone’s winter jasmine bush had little yellow flowers out on it. The winter sun even has a little warmth if you are in a sheltered spot out of the northerly wind.
One of the things I have noticed in the countryside in the late autumn 2025, was that the holly trees and evergreen trees were absolutely covered with lots of red berries – a sign, I believe, of cold weather to come in the winter.
Every year we are challenged during these colder winter months to get through each day, enjoy going out in the winter sun when we can, occupy ourselves with indoor projects, while the countryside is quietly asleep at the moment, just resting, in hibernation until spring comes again. Animals like hedgehogs and dormice are hibernating currently. Then – just when you think winter will never end – suddenly it is spring. Just when you think the brown bare trees are never going to come out into leaf –they start bursting their buds and lots of birds start nest-building.
Christina’s work reflects the connection with nature that lies at the heart of our Nature-Based Therapies and Skills Programmes and links beautifully to the winter activities we’ve been undertaking in our workshops for adults with learning disabilities, autism, and mental health support needs – which all follow the seasons’ patterns, fostering a wellbeing-boosting relationship with the natural world around us.
Through these programmes, people enjoy meaningful experiences connected to nature, exploring the changing seasons, learning new skills, and discovering the calming, restorative power of the natural world, which is perfectly captured in Christina’s writing.
