Words by Rebecca Wilson | Founder and managing director of Jolly Nice | previous life as an organic farmer in the Cotswolds

Hi Rebecca here, I hope this find you well.

It’s been a long, quiet, dark January and we are more than ready to leave it behind.

January is always the toughest month for us. After the excitement and highs of the festive season, I’m usually a little burnt out and try to go to ground for the first few weeks. However, the reality is that behind the scenes we’ve been pretty non stop, planning the year ahead, tidying up after December, painting walls and power washing muddy floors.

Good coffee, walking the dogs and hearty winter suppers have just about got us through.

The energy soon starts to change though when I notice the first little yellow Winter Aconites (from the buttercup family) flowering around the trees where I live, shortly followed by pockets of Snowdrops.

I sometimes pop over to Painswick Rococo Gardens at this time of year, just a few miles down the read from Jolly Nice. They are famed for having one of the largest naturalistic plantings in the country, a hidden valley in the Cotswolds, blanketed with over five million snowdrops. 

Our farmshop team have been doing a fantastic job of getting things back together. You’ll notice the little touches they’ve made, planting snowberry bushes in barrels through the middle of the cafe, along with bud vases of winter flowers on each table.

Meanwhile our local growers have kept us going with delicious winter veg, letting us stew in the earthy flavours of the season.

As we (gladly) leave January behind and draw closer to Spring, I am beginning to feel more zest for the year ahead. We have a few exciting plans already in the works and you’ll be the first to find out about them here.

With valentines now just around the corner, Alex in our farmshop deli has begun to pair bottles with locally produced cheese and Mandy our florist is busy tying beautiful bunches in the lead up.

In the meantime, the ovens are hot, the kitchens are cooking up all the usual goods and we’re keeping nice and warm in the cafe with hefty logs on the fire.

Yesterday I took twenty or so of the team to the pub for lunch. Breaking bread together and sharing stories was a real joy and I hope to make this more of a seasonal ritual with them.

Thank you for all of the support over the past year - like many, we had a really tough one but we’ll keep doing what we do, for as long as we can!

Hope to see you again soon,

Rebecca x

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