DECEMBER 2024: A TIME OF LIGHTS
Wisdom comes with winters, said Oscar Wilde
PRESS PLAY,
Then read…
Horizontal rain, 6 hours of dusk in lieu of daylight, not a single tree in sight and everything, from the stone houses to the ground, dull in a muddy brown: December in Shetland is not for the faint hearted. Neither is our hotel. Having missed the previous night’s flight from Edinburgh to Sumburgh Airfield (thanks BA!) we arrive a morning late at this 80s brick fort, directly facing the metal monstrosity that is the island’s ferry port. The lights are on but there is no one on reception. A typed A4 instructs us to dial an in-house number and let it ring a very specific 13 times. Someone appears, hands over keys, waves us off in the general direction of our rooms on the third floor. The lift is out. We pass a bizarre nativity scene comprising of inflatable snowpeople, outdated shop mannequins, a multi-racial duo of baby dolls holding cuddly penguins, all accompanied by a screeching cacophony of music box Christmas songs blaring from decorative plastic oldy-worldly lanterns. The corridor is a drab burgundy on the walls, with faux wood panelling falling off in places, a beige tartan carpet and a side table with a bowl of dusty, depleted potpourri. I am sleeping in a pretend four poster bed, accompanied by chipped Regency-inspired furniture and peeling wallpaper. The hotel bar is shuttered, the breakfast mushrooms are shrivelled with age, swimming in oil on my plate. The around-the-clock hallway Christmas music is relentless. We expect Jack Torrance roaming the empty hallways with a certain tool. If this Shining-evoking hotel doesn’t get us, cabin fever will.
The reason for visiting Shetland was to perform our Big Bingo Show at the Mareel Centre, the UK’s most northerly music, cinema and creative industries hub. Together with the show’s creator and expert bingo caller Timberlina we have performed this irreverent queer chaos of a bingo fest across the UK for Camp Bestival, Homotopia, Happy Valley Pride, the Rye Arts Festival, the Royal Vauxhall Tavern and the Divine. That is, when I am not tickling plants in your gardens or writing about my love for the green world.
For December I am writing less and cocooning more (what day is it again?), to create space for dreaming about the return of light and all those happy outdoor manifestations that come with it. To underscore this period of rest and reflection I have compiled a reading list for you, containing every recommended title STUDIO.SCHIPPER read and published here in 2024, with one new review of a fun family-friendly title. There is also a very gentle Music-To-Garden-By playlist, perfect for snoozing. The to-do list will be almost not-to-do for December. If you have enjoyed my horticultural writings mixed with art, music and culture this year, please consider supporting my words here on Substack with a paid subscription. I will keep the annual cost at £35 for 2025. Every person who contributes in this way directly supports my volunteer work organising growing opportunities and access to nature with the Plot E17 Community Orchard in Walthamstow.
Looking ahead, in January I will send you my newsletter late that month as I traditionally take a break to plan a new growing season while prepping my own home garden. I may still have some Thalia bulbs to plant ::: ahem :::. Plus I am building a STUDIO.SCHIPPER website, something technical I have never done before but am keen to learn. It will feature beautiful gardening photos by Ella Brolly. Below are two autumnal images we shot on a very cold day in November:
BOOK REVIEW
This winter, wrap up warm and venture outside to get to know the wild parts of your neighbourhood or garden, using Urban Forest School by Naomi Walmsley and Dan Westall as your guide. The book has abundant ideas for outdoor activities, adventures and skills for city kids and curious adults. Forest Schools are great for connecting younger people to their natural environment, be that a garden, allotment, park, nature reserve, cemetery or woodlands. I enjoyed that is was instructional, informative, creative and mindful. Considering the vast benefits of being in nature (more on this in 2025), having a book to hand to help guide your family activities is useful. Playing, and growing outside is good for humans: look up, look down, and life, as well as hope, is witnessed all around us. Walmsley and Westall suggest embracing the weather with puddle stomping, kite flying, rain painting through teaching us how to tie knots, make mud pies, spot cloud formations and much, much more. My personal copy was purchased locally from the gift shop Yeet on Forest Road for the set price of £16.99. It can also be ordered from Waterstones. I imagine some of these ideas will inspire activities at Plot E17 Community Orchard during the new growing season! Should you undertake some of these yourself, tell me how they worked?
WINTER BOOK LIST
Below are the titles I reviewed in 2024, as wordy companions for a spot of hibernation, with a link to the original STUDIO.SCHIPPER newsletter review. If you’re more of a listener, there is also last month’s podcast recommendations list HERE.
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Eat What You Grow by Alys Fowler
Henry Doubleday Research Association’s Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening edited by Pauline Spears
We Are The Ark by Mary Reynolds
Photography Notes From The Garden by Éva Németh
Growing Bulbs In The Natural Garden by Jacqueline van der Kloet
Wilding by Isabella Tree
London In The Wild: Exploring Nature in the City published by The London Wildlife Trust
MUSIC
A candle or twinkling Christmas tree meditation is all the more mesmerising with a musical blanket in the shape of this month’s playlist to wrap around your shoulders. Enjoy reading, writing, walking and contemplating with these seasonal sounds:
TO-DO-OR-NOT-TO-DO LIST
Truth be told, you don’t have to do a single thing outside this, or next month. So ignore this list if you want:
Take a long marsh walk, hands warm around a flask of hot tea
Sow Sweet Peas in a greenhouse, if you have such a luxury
Order bare root plants for planting boundary hedges
Plan garden improvements. STUDIO.SCHIPPER offers a plant design to refresh or replant one average Victorian garden border for £170 (excluding plants, materials and labour). Email studio.schipper@gmail.com to discuss.
Start winter pruning (fruit) trees and shrubs to bring in more light, reduce height, remove damaged and diseased growth, encourage flowering as well as fruiting. If you’d like to learn or need help, STUDIO.SCHIPPER can work with you one-to-one, teaching skills for renovating as well as season-specific shaping of apple, pear, quince trees (£75 for 3 hour one-to-one workshop in February. Trees max. 4.5 meters tall). Some pruning demonstrations will need to be done standing on a kitchen ladder. We’ll tackle your existing trees so you learn about your own tree stock. However, a professional pruning job is assessed on a tree-by-tree basis and is booked separately via studio.schipper@gmail.com.
Light candles, mull apple juice, read seed catalogues.
There are fairy lights hanging in the allotment shed plus I brought along a wicker chair, pillows and a vintage wool blanket. When I go I do always aim to work but sometimes striking a balance at the end of the year means sitting down, staring out the door at a silent landscape veiled low hanging misty clouds. I have already spotted first signs of Spring so I know hope is on its way.
Thank you to my amazing STUDIO.SCHIPPER gardening clients, for trusting my expertise, for working alongside me to beautify your own green spaces and for believing in organic growing. Thank you to the subscribers for supporting my writing. Thank you for the nature lovers who have found this newsletter and have sent warm compliments. You have made my horticultural efforts so joyous, thanks for sharing in wanting the best for wildlife, nature and people. Have a positive, calm start to 2025.
With warm New Year’s wishes,
Maureen Schipper
STUDIO.SCHIPPER
Vines, leaves, roots of darkness, growing,
now you are uncurled and cover our eyes
with the edge of winter sky
leaning over us in icy stars.
Vines, leaves, roots of darkness, growing,
come with your seasons, your fullness, your end.
- Winter Solstice Chant by Annie Finch
