We’re well into November. Sorry to state the obvious but it means we almost a month away from the shortest day - in the northern hemisphere. Oh lucky people south of the equator! Here,
light is increasingly precious at this time of year.
I know there are people who love the winter. (I know only because I have a good friend who loves nothing more than wrapping up like an Eskimo and striding out up a hill in any weather, and returning to a glass to mulled something by a roaring fire. She would live in Scotland if she could, and revel in the cold and the dark.)
Many of us struggle. And I think we need to distinguish between our winter struggling - whinging at the performance of putting on layers of woollies only to find you’ve lost your gloves again, the fact that evenings seem to begin at four o’clock when the lights go on - from those who suffer from SAD.
Seasonal Affective Disorder is a full-blown winter depression. It is very different from annual grumpiness. I am reluctant to get out of bed on grey mornings - but I can do it. I don’t enjoy being weighed down by thick coats and hats and gloves and scarves - but I can do it. It’s fine to not like winter, but we manage it even if it comes with obligatory grumbling. Many SAD sufferers even lose the impulse to grumble.
So next time I witter about hating the cold and the damp and the dark, and how I need to go away in January and February to escape the worst of it, you have my permission (metaphorically, of course) to stamp on my frozen toes and remind me how lucky I am. I have seasonal grumpiness. I am truly fortunate compared with those whose minds and bodies want nothing more than to hibernate for three months every year.
