The few weeks we had left of the year, between returning from Central America and the holiday season, passed in an eye-blink. Recovering from the dengue took me longer than it should have, and I’m pretty sure I caught some other viral thing at the beginning of December too, so I wasn’t feeling up to much.

Pacing myself, I spent many mornings admiring how our shallow winter light transforms my everyday surroundings into ethereal beauty (as it does every year). I camped out in south facing rooms and followed the roaming patch of light, like a cat would.

At the end of November I nipped down to Bristol to see some old friends, and then London to meet new ones. Even waiting for a morning bus to take me into town becomes a visual treat at this time of the year:

Then today, back in Scotland, halfway through the longest and lowest cold snap we’ve seen in a decade, a frozen haar rolled in towards sunset.

There is just so much beauty around.