A few days before Christmas, I took three streps out of my front door, slipped on a sheet of ice, skidded all the way to the end of the path, and landed on my bottom. I was so angry with the hard frost we had had overnight that I huffed my way back inside and vowed that was the end of the present-shopping trip. I must have been a strange sight, swaddled in many jumpers and scarves, sliding all the way down my path just to return inside again. But as I was nursing my bruises (which were pathetic), I started thinking about all the good things that frost brings.

A thick coating of silvery ice brings a very boring winter garden to life. This is when good design and strong lines are paramount: there is nothing quite so beautiful as a yew hedge outlined delicately by a good hard frost. And the frost creeps over the seedheads in the borders which once looked so skeletal and miserable and are now well-dressed, shimmering sculptures.

On that day I skated down my front path, the veg beds froze solid. The snow was melting, and as it ran back to ground, it froze, and left a thick varnish over the soil. When I used to garden on heavy clay, frosts like this were a godsend as they broke down the thick, sticky soil. So towards to end of each year, I would dig over the beds, and leave the clods of earth exposed, ready for nature to break them down for me. Digging the beds over also meant the frost would kill quite a few nasty grubs sheltering in the soil as well, and this year I am very grateful for a hard frost, as it means any blight spores lingering in the beds won’t make it through to summer.

And as for the plants that remain in the vegetable beds? Well, now’s the time to dig up the parsnips, as the frost will have converted many of their starches into sugar, giving that fabulous honeyed taste.

But the thing I am most grateful for is that frosts push fruit trees into a good old sleep. Which means that in spring, their blossoms will be heartier, and in summer, their fruits more plentiful. As long as the frosts hold off when the blossoms open, we’ll be eating plenty of fat, juicy red cherries in a few months’ time.