Welcome to a winter wonderland

Our cabin sites are open year round summer and winter to show the forest its true glory throughout the seasons. Everybody who works in the forest has their favourite season. Some like spring when the buds fatten and show the promise of the future. Some prefer the dappled light of high summer when the air is thick with the scents of trees and forest floor alike. Personally I like autumn – a time to reflect on what summer brought (and to pick mushrooms!)

However one thing we all agree on and that is that when it snows the forest is a true place of wonder and we’ve had a wonderful few weeks at the turn of this decade.

Snow in the forest plays great tricks on your senses. The first thing you notice is how quiet the forest goes as the snows muffle the normal noise of creaking branches, and the birds fall silent puffing up their feathers to keep warm. It’s important to try to feed the birds at this time of year, and equally important to put out water every day for them to drink as most of the natural water is frozen.

Snow also brings great light to the forest and you can see through the trees across the blanket of white. It also brings the ground to life as every animal and bird still busy writes its signature as it goes to and fro about its daily business. Some birds hop and some birds run – you can tell which by whether their footmarks are side-by-side or one-by-one. Scurrying squirrels leave scampering tiny tracks – often with a swoosh in the snow where their bushy tails touch down. The deer leave tell-tale scrapes in the snow where they scratch through looking for food.

We always lose a tree or two when it snows. It may look white and light and fluffy but it can weigh down the branches and snap them clean off, or even bring whole trunks down. It’s always a bit sad to lose a friend that way, but dead wood is just as important to the life of the forest as a proud pine. Everything in the forest needs a place to live and fallen boughs make the perfect home and nesting place for all the bugs and beetles that in turn provide supper for smaller animals and thus keep the forest food chain well stocked.

Mother Nature knows what she is doing. To every thing there is a purpose and every now and then she sends a bit of a blizzard along to shake things up. It’s best to be indoors in your cabin next to a warm log fire when the world is whirling white all around. But it’s great to be out and about on the first blue sky morning.

Actually one thing all our Forest Holidays visitors seem to love doing when it snows is to sit in the hot tub on their balconies with the warm water bubbling away, glass of wine (or even champagne!) in hand watching the endless flakes fall from above. Who said romance is dead – even in sub-zero temperatures?

As you can see from the attached photo, we even get the odd camper come and stay in this weather. Come to think of it, it doesn’t actually get much odder than that!

Let there be light!

There’s an old saying that ‘the darkest hour is just before dawn’ and certainly down in the forest there have been some moody and wild dark mornings of late. Those trees clinging tenaciously to their leaves finally gave up the battle over these last wet and windy few weeks and the pathways and woodland floor is strewn with leaves. There’s another old saying that sometimes ‘you can’t see the wood for the trees’ – not so at this time of year when you can see just about everything!

Actually all the darkness is pretty exciting for us woodsmen. After the darkness comes the light and that means that the winter solstice really marks the start of the New Year for us as the days start getting longer and the sleepy trees start to wake up and think about the coming summer. That makes the winter solstice a time of great hope and looking forward.

The word solstice comes from the Latin sol which means and sun and sistere which means still. Back in the day people used to think the sun stood still for a moment and then start its journey back. Now of course we know the sun always stands still and in fact the solstice is the point at which one of the poles of the Earth reaches its furthest angle of tilt away from the sun – which is about 23.5 degrees. In winter most of us refer to it as the longest night (or shortest day), although the actual solstice itself lasts a mere instant.

Scientists can calculate that moment in time, which may actually occur any time on either 21st or 22nd of December. This year, 2009, the moment of solstice for those of us in the UK, will be at 17.47 on 21st. From that point on the days will be getting longer and it’s only a few days to go until Christmas on 25th – which was originally the official solstice in the days of Julius Ceasar under the Julian calendar which came into force in 45BC.

Since Forest Holidays started Christmas has become a great time down in the woods. In years gone by the trees stood alone as we all went home to sit by our fires. Nowadays on any Forest Holidays site the forests are full of life at Christmas and New Year (and in fact right through the winter). The cabins twinkle in between the trees and the smoke drifts slowly up from the log-burning stoves. As you walk across the clearing and imagine people indoors sitting down to turkey and all the trimmings it’s all rather like being in a Walt Disney movie – especially if it snows.

Let there be light. It’s all about light down in the forest and, whether it’s bright summer sunlight or the twinkling of coloured bulbs on a Christmas tree, the forest loves it. And so do we!

If you'd like to join me in the forest visit Forest Holidays