After a gloomy, damp January 1st, we had an unexpected little drama around lunchtime as our invited guests struggled to make it up to our house because of a ‘track’ issue.
Which will remain suitably blurry in image form, though crystal clear in my memory.
The weather then switched to being much colder for a few days, with frosts to minus 4.5 degrees C, little wind, and finally, a front bringing in nighttime snow and brisk winds.
On a couple of mornings this meant glorious moody, evolving sunrises. Well worth getting up for, and as during December 2024, producing some dramatic and unusual cloud and colour combinations – all part of the delight of living here.
Around the garden, early snowdrops and Daphne bholua flowers are beginning to hint at the changes ahead, even if the snowdrops temporarily ‘wilt’ in these temperatures.
Light and shadows are important on a garden walk.
And one never knows what might present as a photo opportunity, if one can be quick enough to press the shutter.
In such light, it’s always worthwhile walking up Longevity Hill for distant views as the sun begins to fall around 3.30 pm, and shadows lengthen.
And then returning around 4.15pm to try to spot the rush hour starling flocks as they head West (this year) to their overnight roost. After worrying that numbers seemed much lower last year, the winter of 2025 has already produced some of the largest flock fly-pasts I’ve ever witnessed in our time here. I hope that doesn’t hint at a long hard winter ahead of us.
Later the same evening there was a wonderfully clear close conjunction between a thin crescent moon and Venus, as dusk fell.
Fortunately, the predicted sudden rise in temperature arrived in the early hours of the 5th, so after sweeping thick snow off the PV panels just before bed, by late afternoon the following day most of the roughly 3 inches snow had melted, as the precipitation had turned to rain, and left us with a frankly miserable day, to stay inside.
This milder interlude was short lived and for the next 6 days the temperature barely rose above freezing, and more light snow fell on occasion.
With the ground frozen, there were only limited opportunities for outside work, but yet more glorious sunrises, to compensate for the cold, and generally greyer skies.
From the 8th to the 22nd there was an extended period of ‘dunkelflaute’ weather – when there were mainly grey skies, cold weather and almost no sunshine. A dreadful combination for a country now increasingly dependent on renewables for electricity production, and meaning the UK came very close to blackouts at one point.
However, it meant I was able to continue in my trekking of starlings back to their roost on Mynydd Llanllwni, and two amazing experiences at dawn on the 19th and 20th, which are captured in the YouTube below.
Around the land and garden, work continued with tidying up storm fallen trees, relaying paths, track work and log stores were nearly re-filled, before a follow-up Storm Éowyn on January 24th created more debris, and also blew off and smashed our terracotta bird bath, which has often featured on this website.
Fortunately there’s been no further obvious damage to honey bee colonies, and on rare warm and sunny moments bees have been foraging from the five remaining viable colonies. 
Despite all the wintry weather, the snowdrops are continuing to open all the time and the benefits of planting unsold ‘potted up ‘stock’ every year means many areas of the garden now have lots of early season, larger flowered snowdrops in bloom before the month’s end, in what is turning out to be a much later season than in many recent years.
A few Crocus ‘Firefly’ are also looking gorgeous as they always do in any sunny moments, although the Cyclamen coum seem very late and reduced in flower numbers, so far.
We’ve continued to get some spectacular sunrises, of various forms, as the sun begins its Northerly march back around the South Easterly horizon hills, and days lengthen fast.
And there have been more occasions when the large starling flocks have passed overhead at dusk, and even occasionally settled in our own field to feed.
Friendly robins are near constant companions once we begin any garden work, and the Camellias, Cornus sibirica and yew hedge are at their most striking in late afternoon sunshine, when the long envisioned windows cast lovely shadows across the croquet lawn. 
On a sunny afternoon, a walk around the upper hay meadow is always enjoyable with the fabulous distant views.
The final rainfall for the month was 197.51 mm, the mainly dry month’s figures being spoiled by the very wet final week. There were 12 dry days, 10 days of frost, and 2 days of snow. The PV inverter reading of 79.58 KWH was typically low, more so because of the many grey days, with little wind or rain. The Met Office summary for the month shows across the UK it was colder than the 30 year average, as well as being sunnier – this didn’t apply however to our tiny portion of Carmarthenshire! Where we fell into the realms of being close to the ‘average’ for January. Which is borne out by my own more limited records below. 
Records from previous Januarys are shown below, with maximum and minimum readings highlighted:
2014: 332.3 mm rain, 2 dry days No frosts/snow PV N/A
2015: 204.5mm rain, 6 dry days, snow and frosts, PV N/A
2016: 296.5 mm rain, 2 dry days, Some hail, PV 62.31 KWH
2017: 123.1 mm rain, 10 dry days, Frosts to minus 8 no snow PV 79.46 KWH
2018: 191 mm rain, 5 dry days, No frost snow records, PV 72.23 KWH
2019: 120.6 mm rain, 9 dry days, 4 frosts 3 days snow PV 66.27 KWH
2020: 206.2mm rain, 5 dry days, One frost. Light snow one day PV 79.68 KWH
2021: 218.8 mm rain, 9 dry days. Frosts and snow, PV 79.6 KWH
2022: 86.1mm rain, 13 dry days, No recorded frosts or snow PV 77 KWH
2023: 290.5 mm rain, 8 dry days, PV 96.6 KWH
2024: 227.9mm rain, 11 dry days, 10 frosts PV 87.79 KWH
2025: 197.51 mm rain, 12 dry days. 10 frosts 2 days of snow, PV 79.58 KWH