Winter is Coming….. Winter is Here.

Ok, not quite here – Yet. But it is coming. I’ve never been winter’s biggest fan and as I get older my feelings towards to season certainly don’t improve much. Maybe I like cats so much because I identify with their love of being warm and dry. I don’t like being cold and I most certainly don’t like being cold and wet – which is essentially what winter in the UK is all about: cold, rain and wind. I do treasure those days of blinding blue skies, lung freezing cold and that delightful crunch of snow under foot but such days are to be treasured because they’re so rare. More often than not we are more likely to experience days or weeks of slate grey skies, temperatures just cold enough to be annoying whilst being warm enough to allow various types of bugs to spread around the office or the bus I travel on and the sound of squelching around in wet shoes.

What my body is telling me – right now – is to eat and sleep. I sometimes wonder if my bear DNA is higher than the national average. This is the time of year I simply want to hibernate until March. If only I could! I have a simple equation in my head – daylight = daytime. So when I get up in the ‘morning’ and it’s still dark my brain is telling me that I should still be in bed and asleep not downstairs eating breakfast cereal trying not to think of my rapidly cooling duvet. Once, some years ago, my friend convinced me for the best part of a month to let her give me a lift into work. Now she’s an early bird so I was walking into the office – causing shockwaves wherever I went – about the time I’d usually be cleaning my teeth in my bathroom at home. I vividly remember getting out of the car and looking up and seeing stars in a jet-black sky. This isn’t morning, I said. This is still night time.

One of the things I’m looking forward to when I retire (not long now) is no longer being torn out of my cosy sleep in the middle of the night an hour or more before the sun comes up and being forced to go outside in the cold rain. Not long now I’ll be able to wake up naturally and, later, watch the bad weather outside with a cup of hot chocolate in one hand and a book in the other – toasty warm and dry. It’s a simple dream I have but I think it’s a good one.

Of course it’s not all gloom – even in the UK, a place not exactly known for its great weather. This is the time of year we have Halloween, Bonfire Night and, of course, Christmas. Now although I don’t ‘celebrate’ Christmas I do appreciate the sentiment. I enjoy Christmas meals with friends and work colleagues. I enjoy having an extended break – 20 days this year! – and the opportunity for two whole days gaming (Christmas Day and New Years) which has become a tradition along with (possibly this year) a whole day of themed DVDs: possibly every Jurassic Park film this year [muses]. Then, of course, there’s the excuse, as if I needed one, of buying myself something nice for Christmas. I keep promising myself a new BIG screen TV. Maybe this year? Then, of course, there’s the possibility that we might get snow – in either quantities large enough to warrant a home working day (or two) or at least for the possibility of a few well aimed snowballs at work……

To stave off the pull of hibernation I’ll drink plenty of fruit juice and eat plenty of vegetables to fool my body into thinking that it’s actually summer. Somehow I don’t think my body is that dumb but it’s worth a punt. Or I could just call it an early night and dream of cosy caves full of snoring bears….