Gloomy Days of Winter

I will openly admit that Winter is my least favorite season of the year.

I love the Summer time, with being able to wear a tee-shirt and shorts, and to go outside barefoot. I love being able to take nice long walks in the countryside and to go to the beach. But Winter - yuck!

Of course the Winter season can be pretty, especially when the trees have a covering of snow, and everything is glistening with frost, but along with Old Man Winter comes those long gloomy days that seem to go on forever.

In England the Winter days are quite short, the temperatures hovering around freezing, but it's a damp cold with grey skies and a wind that can chill you to the bone if you are out in it for long enough. It's dark when I get up in the morning, barely light when I get to work, and then dark by the time I leave to go home.

When I was living in Indiana, someone once asked me why English people are so miserable. Before I could think of anything to say, someone else chirped up with "well if you hadn't seen the sun in over a week...", and it really made me think.

Winters in Northern Indiana can get bitterly cold, and you are guaranteed plenty of snow, however with that winter wonderland that seems to go on for months, comes a lot of blue skies, and not only does the sunshine feel really warm when you are behind glass, it really brightens things up and makes the day seem a lot cheerier.

So what this person said really made a lot of sense to me, and memories of this came flooding back in the last two weeks, when England has had freezing temperatures, and far more than the normal levels of ice and snow. At the same time, we have had day after day where it's been practically dark all day, not really misty, but very overcast, and the sun hasn't had a chance to get out and shine at all.

Fortunately today the skies are a bit brighter, and I had the feeling this morning on the way to work that it was a bit brighter outside. We are now fortunately a month past the shortest day of the year, and well on our way to the arrival of Springtime. It's time to get outside again and to look for the first snowdrops or crocuses bursting through the recently frozen soil, and in no time at all it will be March and the daffodils will be in bloom throughout the country.