What a good thing it is to dig. In the dark days of December, I lifted the heavy clay earth to put in bulbs of all colours: snow drops and grape hyacinths, tulips and narcissi.

I popped them under the scrappy sods of grass on our rain soaked lawn. I dug into unfamiliar earth beside the crumbling old walls which surround our new bare garden.

I dug deep to root two flowering cherries. On the other side of the grass I planted a series of fruit trees: apple and pear. Between them I placed white peonies which had bent low with full heads of blowsy petals in our old garden in Summertown.

I sought out bare rooted roses which in summer will cascade over the warm brick in fragrant showers, and clematis with silver heads in whose tangled stems songbirds might stop to nest.

I hung fairy lights from the olive trees, and an old Moroccan lamp from a rusty nail in the wall. Now back from the icy gusts of West Wales, I can see the first signs of life.

Peering into my pots, pale shoots are emerging, finger-like from the wet compost. A pair of robins are jousting by the kitchen door. Swaggering jays are leaping from the grass up to the dangling bird fat balls, and hanging off their netting with a steely determination. Meanwhile blue tits and great tits fly between neighbours’ trees, afraid to challenge these russet rustlers.

Blackbirds sing from an overhanging mulberry, and pigeons bill and coo as they hop – slide even – seductively towards a potential mate.

Even in deepest winter, after the warmth of Christmas gatherings, nothing sleeps for long. New life, new hope and new beginnings emerge inexorably from the most unpromising, slumbering vistas.

This is a quiet and thoughtful time of change and resolution. It’s when I face the tasks I’ve been putting off, step away from the hectic whirl of the year’s end, and like Mole in Creation Theatre’s wonderful production of Wind in the Willows at the North Wall, it’s a time for spring cleaning and home making, to welcome in the warmer days to come.

Digging is one way of finding that feeling of well being which too much celebrating can blunt.

Swimming’s another which I love, especially with some new prescription goggles which allow me to see the brilliant blue world of underwater lanes and the tiles at the end of the swimming pool, quickening my stroke, and raising my heart rate.

Slipping out of the pool, I love the feeling of loose limbedness, of ease and relaxation, of feeling better for the exercise.

So dig, plant, walk, swim, take back your environment from the happy days of Christmas, when nothing mattered but celebration and self indulgence.

Now’s the time for taking stock, to make the most of the new year’s promise.

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