He seems always to find just the right words for me when I want to express something profound. He is there for me when I search for a poem, a phrase, a thought that explains something important to me.

This week I sifted slowly though one of his beautiful poetry books which my son bought me, and I found Winter (1996):

We give thanks for the blessing of winter

Season to cherish the heart

To make warmth and quiet for the heart

To make soups and broth for the heart

To cook for the heart and read for the heart...

My pressure cooker lid collapsed after fifty years this week. A winter without soup is not winter, and nothing would satisfy but to find the handle fixer in the Village. Brian cheerfully and swiftly repaired it, exchanging skills for a handful of limes. It will last many another year. Bartering goods and services is one of the many assets this Village offers us. Soup is on again.

Having moved home we traded half an acre of garden for 45 square metres, and have become garden tragics.  

I wander out to the back garden to check on several new plants we are bedding in, letting them adjust before spring arrives.

Our garden is rather akin to a child’s Christmas stocking, brimful and blooming. 

We are already into pruning and trimming as every plant is bursting out all over.  

We will be taken over in our beds when spring arrives.

Shakespeare used King Richard to sternly announce ‘Now is the winter of our discontent’. Poor Richard.

Winter is never a time of discontent for Rob and me, it is a time when we look forward to another great pleasure in our lives – the grandchildren come to stay. In summer they are off holidaying, camping, resort staying and consequently we hardly sight them. In winter it is our turn to catch up with them.

All three bound in with their wheelie cases, their iPads, more clothes than they can use in a month, and we hunker down to play chess, mah-jong, UNO, and every card game imaginable. We stroll to the heated pool - now that’s a treat. They play bowls and snooker with their grandfather. Highlight of the week their mother tells me is bingo held at the Community Centre.

They return home with at least one piece of new clothing each. Isn’t that what grandmothers do?

A visit to the Discovery Centre is mandatory, as are the second hand bookshops – treasure troves.

What is there not to love about winter... ‘Season to cherish the heart’.

Holidays are nearly here.