Winter's beauty

A short update and a photography essay about the beauty of winter.

Feb 07, 2024

The week before the winter solstice, my husband went to the UK for work and came back with Covid. A few days after, I caught it too.

We both had a few days with high fever, cough, blocked nose, joint pains, and utter exhaustion.

We also completely lost our sense of smell and taste, which I found quite unsettling.

I've always had a fine sense of smell and taste, and I was terrified that they would never come back.

I know that there are worse things in life, but I felt as if an important part of me was missing.

My anxious mind kept playing worst case scenarios in which I'd never experience again the sweet scent of flowers, and all the others smells I love and find comforting and uplifting - freshly mown grass, the garden after the rain, the rich, earthy smell of forests, the freshness and spiciness of aromatic herbs, the warmth of cinnamon and cardamom, the soothing scent of vanilla, and more.

I love good food, and experimenting in the kitchen is one of my creative outlets, so I also feared that I’d forever lose my ability to cook and make up recipes, and to savour meals.

To regain my sense of smell as quickly as possible, I followed a friend's advice and religiously inhaled essential oils several times a day.1

After a few weeks I slowly regained both senses, but it's taking me a long time to regain strength and stamina, and to get back into healthy routines.

I had planned to start my year here on Substack in January, and share the reason I'm no longer posting on Instagram, but so far I only have a rough draft ready so instead I'm sharing some photos of winter's beauty.

In winter, the season of rest, nature seems to stand still, with its skeleton landscape of bare branches.

Winter’s scenery might be barren, its colours muted, but the season is rich of understated, delicate beauty.

I love the poetry of seed heads, bracken, leaves and twigs laced with frost.