Thursday 21st January

A sure sign of growing older; I can remember my parents saying much the same thing at least twenty years ago.  And ‘hate’ is not exactly the sentiment either, it is more an intense dislike of something we cannot escape from but have to endure.  Or most of us, a few people we know here in Eymet decamp to Southern Spain for January and February.  This is my first winter here; we had visited for a few days at New Year before and then again in mid February for half-term and it didn’t seem so bad.  Bright crisp days, frost in the mornings but clear sunny afternoons didn’t seem so unpleasant.  But so far this January has been very very wet, either persistent drizzle or quite heavy downpours – much the same as England I am afraid.  Somehow when you go to work every day and only see and feel ‘the weather’ on the short walk to and from tube stations it doesn’t seem so bad.

We are having the new house re-wired at the moment and every day I seem to be trudging back and forth between houses with things we need in one house or the other, watching as holes are knocked in ceilings and floors by our electrician.  Of course in a few days the work will be finished and we can start re-decorating and enjoying our new house, but it was not the best of times to be moving or to have the house uninhabitable or to be camping back in the old house.  I seem to be forever trying to dry out coats and hats and shoes.

And most of Eymet is very quiet this winter; the market is almost non-existent, only a third of the stalls and many of the English are back in the U.K.  But we know the Summer will soon be here and our real lives can start again.  Maybe we are becoming more like hibernating animals, burrowing down into the warmth, shutting the doors to our burrows and sleeping through the cold and wet Winters.