'A Story of a Year'

As I have promised to you

Here begins a book, serialised month by month, one chapter at a time.

---

‘A Story of a Year’

by Will Cooper

Introduction

Oxfordshire, January 2024

---

The cold frozen grass, splendidly white, stiff, bristling with hoar frost, crunches under my boot as I walk, the silhouettes of frozen branches, burnished with lichens of green and gold that cling to the branches of the old apple trees here, against a sky that is in a moment, all at once a mixture of every blue you might imagine. Pale, soft baby blue, brushed through with the sharpness of turquoise, fading far away into deep Prussian. It could be a summer sky, early in the morning before the sunrise waits for the warmth of the day to gather, though today the intensity of its cold light gives its secret away.

It is winter.

The blue light is stark, sharp, imposing and cold. Still hibernal here in this secluded corner of rural England. The floods that rose at the turn of the New Year subsiding now as the river Thames wanders through the countryside, contained by its banks once again, fields on either side that were dark lakes until weeks ago once again slowly emerging as grassland. In the distance, a blackthorn bush is coming into bloom, dark pointed spines that will push deep into the thumb of the unwary who might come to pick branches of its blossom; pretty inflorescence disguising its armour. It is the only tree that tells of the promise of what might be, so early in the year. It has a soft white blossom, not unlike apple or cherry, and is a fine addition to a cordial, but beware its unforgiving thorns.

It is said that if you were to look in the corners of bygone fields where hedgerows meet, undisturbed corners, where you might find an ancient oak, one that has stood for centuries, one that can be seen from a distance, some say these are places where treasure might be buried.

Old gnarly hedges thick with branches and thorns. Corners and boundaries from centuries ago, places that people would recognise from a distance, a place where lovers would meet, secrets buried within the roots below, a ring dropped or a small bag of coins or a secret hidden for retrieving another time, now forgotten and lost. There is an old oak in the north corner here amidst a backdrop of the high-reaching boughs and branches of the woods behind. Hedges of bramble, hawthorn and hazel break the fields into lines as they have for hundreds of summers, hideaways where goat moths, field mice and voles live. Verdant and full of life in spring, now lays a decaying bracteal mantle of caramel, umber and tan.