Welcome to 2023

We saw the New Year in amid a throng in Melville Square. Soon after the bells the Flambeaux emerged from behind the Royal Hotel and processed to four corners of the village, led by Comrie Pipe Band. Snow carpeted the ground, absorbing much of the sound, and fell in thick flakes, illuminated by the flaming torches.

In the afternoon the sky brightened and I went walking, not sure how far I would venture in the softened snow. But as I climbed higher the scene became more entrancing with mist drifting in bands at many levels. Where the sun broke through and raised the temperature, mist rose like smoke from the woods.

It was very quiet and I soon left the last human footsteps behind. I found myself following fresh footprints of a fox. The characteristic four paw marks of brown hares crisscrossed my course. Every few hops they paused to dig through the snow to eat some grass. The much larger cloven-hooves slots of red deer traced similar zigzag lines where they too had scraped away the snow to eat. Often I felt I had just missed the creatures whose trails I saw, especially when I came upon freshly chewed trees. Beaver gnawed chips of wood lay on the snow’s surface and a trampled path showed the route taken between the chewed stumps and pond.

Before descending the view opened up to give me a glimpse of the dazzling, sunlit summit of Ben Chonzie, our local Munro. As the sun slowly set the swirls of illuminated mist draped across the landscape gradually changed from gold through peach to rose.

I’d been tramping through the snow for two and a half hours before I met anyone. As I neared home I exchanged New Year’s greetings with other walkers and stopped to chat to people I knew. It eased my transition from the white world, where so many animals and birds had left signs of their activities, to the enclosed domestic sphere, where I was soon drawing the curtains against the dark.