Winter sunshine - a different quality of light

Here in the UK we have been experiencing a spell of really cold weather (by our standards...), but here in Fleet at least we have had a few hours of bright sunshine each day too. Winter sunshine is not like the burning heat of Summer sunshine. Even in its full glare it hardly warms you at all - but it looks nice.

In the morning the sunlight is "thin" and brassy. Not enough warmth in it yet to melt the frost on the grass. The still air in the distance here is full of steam rising from people's central-heating vents. (Very few people burn coal any more, so it's not smoke).

Here the morning sun shines through one of the cloches, illuminating the complex frost patterns:

I think you will understand why I grow Raspberries along this fence, which faces South-East.

This is the morning light catching the Rosemary bushes that you can just see in the foreground of the picture above. Rosemary is a native of the Mediterranean, so it will be wanting to soak up as much sunshine as it can get. It hates cold, wet conditions.

In the late afternoon the light is different. There is a certain quality about the light which makes everything glow, and the intensity of the colours seems to get turned up a notch or two. At this time of day the sunlight comes streaming round the side of my house and illuminates a patch of Dogwood plants in my border, almost as if they were under a spotlight:

Dogwood at the back, Olive at front left

Let me zoom in...

I hadn't consciously thought about the afternoon sun when I planted those Dogwoods, but in retrospect I'm very glad I chose that position for them.

This Fern (Dryopteris Erythrosora) looks pretty green in normal light, but when the afternoon sun falls on it, it is bathed in gold.

In amongst the shingle around the tree-trunks, little Crocuses are poking their heads up. They won't open up unless the sunlight falls directly on them.

Yes, it looks nice, but I'm still very glad I'm sitting indoors with a nice warm cup of coffee while I write this!