Sunday 11th January

In many ways we love the seasons, the slow change from blazing Summer into mellow Autumn and the purging cold of Winter until the re-birth of Spring brings us round again, but sometimes that change can just be too damn slow.  The older I get the less I like Winter; putting up with it, plodding through it, counting the days almost until Spring, but not enjoying it at all.  I particularly dislike these wet and windy days, with squally downpours and tiny glimpses of elusive sun that disappear as soon as you look up to them.  In France recently it was certainly colder and yet it never seemed to penetrate as the cold on wet and windy days here does.  Or is it all more perception than reality, the knowledge that you would rather be somewhere else so affecting you so that you simply feel the cold more.

These depressing days when it hardly ever seems to get really light, grey cloud-filled skies blocking out the sun seem to go on forever.  And we seem to be at the wrong end of Atlantic storms again this Winter; hopefully not as vicious or long-lasting as last year where there was extensive flooding, but I have noticed water laying again in many fields.  I am currently reading a book about climate change, and the worsening weather predicted.  It is tempting to put these rainy days down to global temperature rises but then I can remember many many equally wet and windy Winters’ as a child.  The scientists keep telling us that the planet is warming up, and it probably is but how much it is affecting everyday weather is almost impossible to say.  In many ways we are lucky to be facing the weather coming off the Atlantic, as those countries further East and even a lot more Southerly are far colder every Winter.   We have a friend just returned from the Ukraine where it is deep snow for months – I really couldn’t bear that.  So maybe moaning about the weather is just another way of complaining about life in general.   And then again there is nothing nicer than sitting in a nice warm room looking out at all that wet and windy weather, knowing you don’t have to go out in it again all day.