My sister-in-law wrote a great snapshot of the precise moment when a person feels winter has come. I can relate to everything she wrote. Brilliant. Here it is:
BBBbrrrrrrrr I hate winter. What I truly dislike is the sudden onset of the night, the sun in freefall as it dips below the horizon – one minute half light and the next darkness.There's no easing into the evening, no quiet reflective moments in which you can kick off your shoes, reach for a chill glass of white wine and ponder all those things that you have stuffed up in the course of the day.
It's too cold to sit outside in the courtyard and look across the street and sitting inside and reviewing the day's disasters is not the same. You need to be able to gaze into the distance and enjoy the soft, evening air while calling down curses on all those who you suspect of having maligned and defamed you since morning.
When you arrive home in winter there is but one thing on your mind – to peel off your layers of protective clothing and immediately climb into several more.
You can't eat salads during winter because it is too cold which is fine for some people but poses certain dietary problems for me.
I hate vegetables.
Not potatoes, which I don't count as real vegetables because you can make chips out of them, nor butternut pumpkin because if you close your eyes you can convince yourself you're not eating pumpkin, nor peas because they taste just fine in meat pies.
What I cannot abide are real vegetables, which are anything green or yellow other than the above mentioned which makes for limited winter fare.
Winter also means confronting the virus that attacks sweaters, tracksuits and sweatshirts during the long, languid summer months.
Each year as the first breath of autumnal chill frosts the grass, I dive frantically into wardrobes and draws in a desperate search for warm clothing.
In a moment, T-shirts and shorts are cast aside and ill-matched, ill-fitting fleecy lined outfits with saggy knees and baggy bottoms are hauled out due to my subtropical belief that any temperature below 12C can cause cardiac arrest.
Unable to tolerate the most modest fall in ambient temperature, I am among the first to succumb to this paranoid layering of winter wear, whingeing and whining as I burrow into my cupboards in search of sweatshirts and trackpants.
I'd put them away last spring I recalled, and then last week I found them all folded and stacked since last they were worn.
So I tossed the lot into the washing machine and wandered off. Twenty minutes later, I reached for my glasses to check the cycle on the washing machine.
I couldn't find them but could hear a peculiar metallic scraping sound coming from the machine as my clothes swirled and swished within.
I stopped the cycle and found the source of the scraping, it being caused by my glasses which unaided, had somehow made the journey into the washing machine.
On the bright side, they were exceptionally clean, but the arms were twisted like strands of spaghetti.
I straightened them out, sort of, and now they don't fall off my face. Quite the reverse in fact, for they are now perfect for a woman whose forehead is less than 2cm wide.
Accordingly, they hold my loaf-like head in a death grip. It's like walking around with your skull in a vice.
Few people realise that one of the many downsides of winter is that you become a messier eater and spend a lot more time doing laundry.
In summer you eat fish and steak and salad which are not mess free – or not at least when I am wielding the knife and fork – but which allow you to keep the collateral damage to a minimum.
In winter, you eat soup which can be disastrous. One moment's lack of concentration and you're wearing a dollop of Big Red tomato soup down the front of your white track suit top.
For reasons blindingly apparent to anyone who has known me even casually, I do not own any white tracksuits and prefer to colour code my tracksuits with my food – a red one when eating tomato soup, olive green for pea soup and army-style camouflage for stews.
The chill, grey months stretch ahead.
Bears, I think, have the right idea.
