". . .winter, When the great sun has turned his face away, . . ."

Every winter, When the great sun has turned his face away, The earth goes down into a vale of grief, And fasts, and weeps, and shrouds herself in sables, Leaving her wedding-garlands to decay-- Then leaps in spring to his returning kisses.

Charles Kingsley, Saint's Tragedy (act III, sc. 1)

We enjoyed these lights outside the kitchen window through the Christmas season - just colored lights strung on upside down tomato cages and around a potted evergreen.  When it rained, the lights were reflected in the puddles on the deck.
The lights will be put away in a few days, and I'll miss them.  January is a hard month for me - it's hard to transition from the lights and cheer of the Christmas season to the cold and drear of January and February.  Sometimes I feel as if I've gone "down into a vale of grief."  Walking through the drugstore today, I thought of how depressing it was to see shelves of Christmas decorations replaced with giant packages of toilet paper and cleaning supplies.  Browsing through the advertising circulars has the same effect on me - pages of towels, sheets, and storage bins  have no appeal - just a reminder of work to be done.

But Sunday I took my camera into the garden and was cheered a little by the blooms just beginning to show on the camellias and by the promise of the snapdragons.   The ornamental cabbage is as colorful as any summer flower, and amazingly, there were several blooms on the pincushion plant.  Tending a garden is a wonderful reminder of the cycles of life.  Spring will come again. . .