A very warm Happy New Year to you all. Here we go again, another year living through the seasons, marking each day by finding the small joys offered in each moment.
Starting the New Year Together
I’m so pleased to be on this journey with you all again. Can you believe that some of us have been meeting here (and on my former Under An English Sky blog) for nearly 15 years! Time certainly does fly doesn’t it?
Today we woke to a very snowy scene here in North Wales. As I gazed across the hills from my warm bedroom window, where the sunbeams danced across the snow covered fields, I thought about what a blessing it is to be so close to nature and her raw beauty. This post will have a smattering of snowy photographs taken in my garden, because it is what I am seeing right now as I write, and I want to share that with you.
As I step into these early days of January, I want to begin with gratitude…
The Year Ahead on Seasons of Grace and Learning
Thank you, truly, for taking the time to respond to the Seasons of Grace and Learning survey. Each thoughtful answer felt like a conversation shared over a kitchen table, and together they have helped me listen more closely, discern more carefully, and shape the year ahead on both the blog and my YouTube channel with greater intention and care.
I am particularly excited about starting up my YouTube channel again, something 90% of you said that you wanted me to bring back!
I have to warn you that I am anticipating the first few publications will be rather rudimentary. I know the basics and have a LOT to learn about recording and editing film. But I don’t want that to stall publishing on my channel. I tend to be a bit that way…needing to be ‘perfect’ rather than just getting out there and getting it done.
2026 is the year that I’m not going to allow the need for perfection to stand in the way of making progress. I love connecting with you, with the seasons, with my home and I want to do that all in an authentic way. It’s a bit like feeling the need to have a the ‘perfect home’ to entertain others. The truth is, those kind of things mean less to other people than they do to us. They would love to just come and spend time with you rather than wait for the perfect, neat, well decorated home. The art of hospitality is making your visitors feel genuinely welcomed for you all to enjoy meaningful conversations and connections.
So that’s what I plan to do – I’m just going to show up and not worry about it being a stellar production. You can visit Netflix or whatever your preferred streaming provider is for that. Here and on my YouTube channel, it is about just getting to know each other and enjoying our time together.
Imagining 2026 – In The Garden
Have you spent some time dreaming about your 2026 yet? I have, and rather than set ‘new year’s resolutions’ which I ALWAYS fail at, I have reflected on 2025 and imagined 2026. I will go back to these pages in my journal throughout the year to remind myself of where I have been, where I would like to go and make any adjustments that feel right.
One of my long-held dreams is to have my very own greenhouse to potter about it. To get an early start on my seed sowing, to grow lots of tomatoes that will actually ripen because they have enough heat – something hard to come by in UK summers, and to just enjoy the moments of peace, calm and solitude within its glass walls.
I know that this may seem rather silly, especially if you are someone who has always had a greenhouse or whether you just are not a gardener at all. But here at Seasons of Grace and Learning, we all about the small, simple pleasures and joys gained in the ordinary moments of days lived out. For me, gardening is one of those things.
So when the Black Friday sales were on, we bought our very first greenhouse at half the price. We are currently building it ourselves which has provided quite a few frustrating moments over the vaugeries of the instruction manual. I do with that they would use just a few words alongside their technical drawings which make up the entirety of the instruction manual.
It has been two days so far and we still have the door, roof and glass to do. We are still not entirely sure that we have constructed it correctly and are anticipating that we may have corrections to make once we start adding the other components. But…what an achievement once it is done! I have already started planning my 2026 vegetable garden and browsing seed catalogues.
Personal Cultural Development in 2026
The other thing I want to make time for in 2026 is to implement some of Charlotte Mason’s ideas that we raised our children on during our homeschooling years, into my own everyday life. I think that it is a mistake to think that her ideas are only suitable for children. They are suitable for anyone who wishes to be connected to ideas, to grow in knowledge and wisdom.
I am excited to once again be looking at my own cultural development as I pull out some of the reference books I used for composer study and art appreciation.
I have already given up endless (quite useless) scrolling in favour of reading real books filled with ideas and connecting with the characters and their adventures lived out on each page.
I plan to share the books I am reading, my recommendations and of course some lovely seasonal booklist’s with you this year.
I am paying attention to what is happening in my garden, making time to get outdoors and walk along countryside ways, observing once again the small things that most people walk past without noticing. My nature journal and paints are at hand and I have set aside an hour each friday to ensure that at least one entry is made.
One of the Citizen Science projects I am planning on doing – as I do every year – is the RSPB’s Big Garden Bird Watch which is being held between the 23rd and 25th of January this year. I have already signed up to participate and am looking forward to getting my printed Big Garden Birdwatch guide in the post. You can opt to download the digital resources if you prefer. I’m more an analogue kind of girl so love getting my resources in the post.
I have shared here before that as a child, I dreamed of being a writer. Well there is no point dreaming if you do no doing! So each day I write, be it here or on my book that I am working on. By the end of 2026 I want to have completed a manuscript. Sometimes our dreams can be daunting, we do not know where to start. The thought of writing a whole book is enough to paralyse me. But I have had a couple of sessions with my writing coach and she has given me some great ideas on how to tackle it realistically and she has helped me deal with some very real writing block preconceptions that many writers hold. So I am excited to just make small steps of progress each day and see where we end up.
2026 is the year of just showing up – not overthinking, not overplanning. Simply doing the next thing. Do you find that you overthink and overplan? I think that we can really be our own roadblocks on so many things.
Anyhoo lovelies, it is getting mighty cold here in the writing shed. The snow keeps coming thick and fast and now that we are heading into the late afternoon, the temperatures are plummeting. Time to head into the house and warm up next to a cosy fire and a cup of hot tea.
I can’t wait to see you back here very soon!
Blessings to you all.
