Country diary: limited to the house, the magic of winter comes to me | Amy-jane beer

I“Ma hibernator. The season does not get me down so much when I just put it on it, but this year I have done more than normal, I collapsed with a festive double whammy of influenza and respiratory syncyteel virus (aka That coughYou know it).

During recovery, who struggled to concentrate on reading or a screen, I noticed that I watched wall shadows for hours. In the bedroom, framed in the cross hells of our Georgian windows with small panels, I saw strange, smoldering upright forms, of which I finally realized a long focal length. During this time of the year the sun never comes above them. Instead, it scans them as a woody barcode, which projects that day -long shadow games that gradually cross my walls, mark time. In the kitchen, the arboral shadow-wraiths are accompanied by the more defined shades of ivy and clautrozen that grow just outside. And in my studies they are illuminated by sudden torches gold from gilded letters on the spines of Shelved Books.

Light is never more magical than at this time of the year. The shine that slides along other invisible strands of Spider silk; The rich shades in drops of thawed prince, suspended from the growth of the Twiggy, flicker unemployed by the visible spectrum while the drops vibrate in the slightest breeze; The extensive golden hour at the beginning and end of the day when light of a low sun is filtered by a longer transect of atmosphere.

I think of druids and medieval astronomers who mark corners and alignments while heavenly bodies wipe over their heads. I think of Isaac Newton, with time in his hands in home -bound bullying, prove that white light is composed of a spectrum of colors by using prisms to split a beam of sunlight and beat by a hole in his bedroom Sluiter, and later Put a bodkin in his eye To see how his perception of light and color changed. I am not That Bored, luckily. But I am reassured that nature and miracle even arrive in these sitting days to find me.

Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian’s Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order GuardianBookshop.com and get a discount of 15%