I used to regard November as the D month. Dank. Dismal. Dreary. Depressing. That is, until I discovered the Dark. My conversion took place on Black Friday 2019, as I sat alone in a Bedfordshire wood under a sliver of moon.

With eyes slowly acclimatising, I started to pick out night’s nuances – the pale suggestion of leaves underfoot, a glimmer of eyes? What surprised me, though, was the sound. Behind me, the woodland stream continued flowing as loudly and vigorously as by day, yet it seemed incongruous in the darkness, as if the water should be slowing and quietening, preparing to bed down for the night. The irrepressible gushing dispelled any anthropocentric notion that the natural world is a diminished place after dusk.

Tonight I’m sitting in the alder carr – a wood more familiar to me than any other – three hours after nightfall. Here in the trees, all is black, but I know what’s out there: the bramble patch where wood mice forage for blackberry seeds, and the flap of black poplar bark under which treecreepers nested and, quite likely, roost.

In the dead logs beside the path, water and nutrients are flowing through the hyphae of scarlet elf cup fungus. Above my head, marcescent oak foliage is home to a host of wasp larvae, each encased in its own delicate silk button gall. A rustling in the brambles sounds substantial enough for muntjac. The darkness around me feels inhabited, companionable.

The little I can see is captivating too: leafless trees outlined against the skyglow from nearby Hitchin have the simple beauty of Victorian silhouettes. Alders sport tufty crowns on skinny trunks, hawthorn’s zigzag twigs twist in tangled chaos, and a single silver birch bows its fine branch tips with a careless elegance. Without the distraction of colour and texture, I can appreciate the growth habits of these common tree species and connect with them in a way that isn’t possible during the day.

Embracing late November’s dark afternoons and evenings has become an annual ritual, a seasonal escape from what Dara McAnulty recently described as the commodification of attention. For me, Black Friday is a reminder to stop, make my peace with the advancing darkness and open my mind to new ways of engaging with my local patch.