It’s early. I couldn’t sleep so I’m up and sitting on the settee in the living room. The blanket that lives on the settee is covering my legs because it is cold. We are into the last week of October and it definately feels like the first week of winter. The weather forecast for today is wet with a maximum temperature of 7 oC, minimum -1oC.
It doesn’t really get cold that often. Not as often as most people would like I’m sure. We need to have proper winters. Reassuringly cold. It hardly ever gets cold enough for snow. Rarely do we get to go down the common with the sledge, or what’s left of it after 4 kids.
The sledging on the common bit is somewhat romanticised actually. The ten second rush of adrenalin doesn’t seem like adequate recompense for the five minute trudge back up the hill, the wet socks and cold, cold extremities.
One year, after Christmas, we took a cottage in the Lake District for a week. The whole country was covered in snow, except the Lake District. It was a bit of a disappointment and a waste of time carting the sledge all that way. It was a nice cottage, over the road from a nice pub. The pub had given the chef a two week holiday over Christmas though so there was no food there. The menu did look good. Bit strange I thought. Folk eh?
Still we had a good time and the cottage was warm and cosy with a wood burning fire. Mam and Dad came up and stayed on their way home from Ann’s and we had a second Christmas present opening. Hooray.
That was a good break. All too often we hang around at home between Christmas and New Year. Bored. It is a waste of annual holiday. I can see why people go off to St Moritz and Cloisters for New Year. Lots more to do. Plenty of action, mulled wine and fondues. Yes far more interesting. Don’t know why we don’t go!
The after that it’s Barbados or the Bahamas, for that bit of winter sun after the snow. Trouble is we have already booked a weekend in Center Parcs and we can’t do both. Maybe next year…