WARNING: This post contains mentions of January. Yes, it’s the middle of February, but although Substack is a newsletter platform, this is neither news nor a letter. So, if you’re sensitive to January, you may want to look away now …
People really had it in for January this year. And it’s easy to get caught up in a pile-on.
One moment you’re liking social media posts saying ‘How is it STILL January?’ and ‘Today is the 317th of January’, the next you’re likening the cow-churned field of cloying mud that you’re picking your way across to the first month of the year – if you can just get through it to February the gate on the far side without losing the will to live a boot and ending up covered in poo, the rest of the year walk will be just fine.
At every turn, you’re on high alert, looking for signs that spring is coming1.
You trudge up the gravel path that climbs south away from Cape Cornwall, convincing yourself that you’re working up a sweat because the sun has a spring-like warmth to it. You spot a patch of daffodils flowering in the valley at Nanquidno and can almost taste the Easter eggs. And then the clincher on the coast path: the absolutely, completely and totally unmistakeable whiff of wild garlic.
But it’s not really the sun that’s making you sweaty. You’re sweaty because you’re wearing thermals, have done no meaningful exercise since the clocks went back and, this close to Christmas, you’re still mainly composed of Terry’s Chocolate Orange. Unwrap those thermals and you’ll fall into 20 evenly sized segments.
And the daffodils aren’t a reminder of spring. They’re a reminder that you’re way out west – almost as far west as you can get on the mainland – where the ground temperature is that bit warmer so the daffs come up as soon as the Christmas decs come down.
But what about the oniony–garlicky aroma that’s making you think of the cheese sandwich in your backpack? Well, it ain’t wild garlic.
Wild garlic isn’t that common down in these parts, grows mainly in woodland rather than on the coast path and tends to be even less keen on January than we are.
No, this is three-cornered leek – and seeing and smelling three-cornered leek doesn’t really seem to be a sign of anything. It makes itself available to foragers from autumn, well before its nodding, snowdrop-like head pops up on the triangular-shaped flower stalks that give it its name.
More readily available and less flavourful, three-cornered leek is the Tesco value wild garlic. Yet foragers are encouraged to ‘rip them up, eat them all’ because many people can’t stomach its status as – in the unnecessarily angry language of these things – non-native and invasive.
Since arriving on these shores from the Mediterranean, three-cornered leek has embraced some of our harshest months and landscapes. And like January, it will keep coming back. Because like January, you can’t cancel it.
Basking sharks seen on this walk: 0
Total basking sharks seen to date: 0
Note, that spring is coming not that it is spring. Because spring has already begun to creep into February and it’s not a good thing.
"This is neither news nor a letter"
I saw this, and then I realised I've been publishing poems and fiction in a 'newsletter platform.
Yes to all of this!