Winter wonders

Good evening. As the nights draw in and the temperature drops, it’s tempting to turn up the heating, switch on the TV and go into hibernation mode. But for those who make the effort to venture outside, the season has much to offer. From stargazing to storm watching, feasting to fire rituals, our writers have gone in search of the UK’s ‘winter wonders’ – activities that come into their own at this time of year. The author and naturalist Nick Acheson kicks off our feature with a lyrical piece on the joy of watching hordes of Arctic geese coming in to roost in the coastal marshes near his Norfolk home: “There’s never stillness on the Norfolk coast,” he writes. “Even in the darkest days of winter, when light has fizzled to a few short hours of grey and damp, there’s drama in the wings and voices of wild birds.” In Scotland’s Galloway Forest Park, meanwhile, stargazers might get more than they bargained for, with sightings of the aurora borealis increasingly likely as the solar cycle reaches its peak over the coming months. And in Cornwall, a lighthouse cottage proves the perfect place to hunker down during a winter storm. A resurgence of interest in ancient fire rituals and communal feasting is proof, perhaps, that our ancestors knew a thing or two about keeping the winter blues at bay.