Hello lovely person!

January jolliness includes; simple seeds, playing with perfume, sunsets over sand, creamy chocolate, and the joys of crafting on dark days.

Gardening tips for January

The days may be dreary and dull, but we’re well past the winter solstice and the light IS slowly returning. Now’s the perfect time of year for you to consider what kinds of seeds you’d like to sow in the spring.

If you’re a bit haphazard with gardening - as I am - it’s important to choose seeds carefully because, well, they’re a bit more hands on than most other plants.

The ones I grow every year are calendula, borage and nasturtium. They all gently self-seed, even the glamorous nasturtiums. Free plants in future years for you, my friend.

If you feed birds in your garden, you might need to start your seeds in wee pots indoors, or they’ll munch the lot. And all these seeds will germinate, grow and flower indoors as long as they have enough sun. How many could you fit on your windowsills?

Calendula

In a range of vibrant colours, calendula has astonished me by flowering through the winters here in Scotland. Granted, when it gets down to -10C, the flowers look a bit bedraggled, but they perk up as soon as there’s a thaw. My number one favourite grow-from-seed-flower for being jolly, incredibly undemanding, bee friendly and edible. What more could you ask for?

Borage

Another easy to grow seed, this time with flowers in shades of sky blue to indigo, though I have seen some with washes of pink. Borage flowers are beloved by bees, and they make beautiful ice cubes for fancy drinks. Just pick some gorgeous star flowers, pop one in each section of your ice cube tray, fill with water and freeze. They have a delicate cucumber taste; perfect with a spiffy gin.

Nasturtium

With velvety flowers in a range of hot colours, nasturtiums are a cheering sight on a windowsill. Even before the flowers emerge, just look at that incredible foliage. You can eat the leaves and the flowers, both of which have a gently peppery flavour.

Fancy a hand planning your garden this year? I offer garden chats and advice so you can delight in low maintenance plants which’ll fill your outdoor space with fabulous foliage and flowers all year round.

Fragrant musings from the library of scent: Rooted In Molten Stars made at a perfume workshop with 4160 Tuesdays

A liminal space. One foot in the starlit field, and one in the forbidden forest. Which way will you go?

Bright and effervescent where sparkling pomelo feels smooth and ripe. Juniper breathes a rounded juiciness and a forest-y depth. But the real star is an outrageously huge dollop of real orris (which is why the perfume’s cloudy) with my apologies to Sarah McCartney because it’s prohibitively expensive.

And it’s not only the incredible scent of the orris that’s remarkable here, but the texture it lends, like the finest velvet on a mushroom, or the most exquisitely supple suede jacket. Rich but refined, it gives a warmth and complex earthiness to this otherwise simple blend.

Of course, this wee experiment would not be nearly so successful without the delightful Amber Woods 2 base that Sarah let us use.

Have you tried making your own perfume?

Nature notes for January

Trickles of seawater, lit molten amber by the sliding sun

weave sinuously across rippling sand

seven geese honk busily overhead, as a strand of

improbably ruby-red seaweed snags my feet

crunching over brittle shells.

Featured bean-to-bar chocolate: Bare Bones hot chocolate

Sometimes, you just need to escape to a cosy cafe and slurp some first grade hot chocolate. And, where better to hunker down in the winter storms than Bare Bones Chocolate in Glasgow?

You get to choose which of their delectable bean-to-bar chocolates to have melted into hot milk, and you can even opt for a handmade marshmallow to ooze sweetly into the creamy liquid.

Mmm. What a pick-me-up. Are there any good hot chocolate places where you live?

Wellbeing tip: crafting

Now, if you’d told 10 year old me that I’d be a keen knitter, I’d have laughed in your face. I had absolutely zero interest or patience with anything that fiddly, although it didn’t stop my mother from desperately trying to get me to learn. But fast-forward 30 years, and I was happily teaching myself how to knit hats, with the (surprising) help of John Lewis videos.

The motivation was strong. I’d booked a holiday to Iceland for February (a cheap time to go) and then realised I’d need properly cosy accessories. The shops in Bath were full of either scratchy acrylic or prohibitively expensive cashmere hats and scarves. So, with two months until flying out, I decided I’d knit my own.

And with a few minor blunders, I graduated from knitting various lengths of garter stitch scarves to genuinely cosy and soft hats. Using two strands of yarn simultaneously to create different visual and textural effects was something I never realised you could do, but wow, I was hooked. Along with being able to wear what I’d made, it ticked all the boxes for something to do on cold, dark evenings. Though if you fancy having a go, I would suggest looking at how good the light is where you’ll be sitting, or you might struggle with eye strain when you’re counting stitches.

How are you spending these winter evenings (if you’re in the northern hemisphere)?

⭐ Thanks for being here; I really appreciate your time! As ever, all wibbly words and photos are by me, Rowan Ambrose. The perfume and hot chocolate were paid for by me too ⭐

On the blog:

9 best fabulously fruity perfumes from indie brands