Here in snow country we are settled in to what is a very long stretch of potentially boring days. The holidays are over. It is a very long time till we will get outside on a regular basis. The snow that seemed so beautiful at first is now dirty and the snow banks are piling up. Our vehicles are all the same shade of brownish grey, but if we go to the car wash our doors will freeze shut. People get grumpy. Of course, not everyone lives in a cold climate, but even in warmer places the days till springtime can get long. Help! Please give us five suggestions for combating cabin fever and staying cheerful in our monochromatic world?
After a slightly hideous week, this is well-timed for me. January is enlivened only by Hattie Gandhi's birthday ...I always hate saying Good bye to Christmas decorations and this year struggled too with saying Good bye to departing students so I've been working on cheer-up strategies for all I'm worth. So far I'm trying
1. Candles...lots of candles, tea-lights, anything to bring pools of warmth and brightness into the house
2. A hyacinth or two about the place. My mother always used to remember to plant them in the autumn and they would lurk in the cupboard in the hall, their growth encouraged by the darkness, till they were ready to emerge as the Christmas cards came down, to fill the house with their scent. This year I failed even to buy a couple of bulbs to put in glasses on the window cill, but I did see some in the Co-op as I rushed out on Thursday, so they are on my shopping list for later.
3. A tidy-up/clear-out session....I managed, finally, to take an accretion of bits to the charity shop last week and the combination of having cleared the space and also being able to switch off the guilty feeling that I hadn't already done so was thoroughly therapeutic. Yesterday I reshelved all my CDs, which had been waiting on the floor since the holidays because the CD rack had decided to buckle under the strain. Now they are back where they belong I feel more like playing them...which brings me to
4. Music. Lots of it. Nothing like singing along to a chunk of the B Minor Mass to life the wintery gloom I find....
5. And if all else fails, a golden retriever on the sofa is a great cuddling companion, and also a reason not to hibernate completely - sometimes winter walks can help too, specially if there's a heavy frost. Mud transformed to shimmering beauty (that sounds as if it ought to be a sermon reference)
If the day dawns when the puppy can't make me laugh, then all will NOT be well in my world. It's never yet happened, and if it does I guess I won't be blogging about it.
After a slightly hideous week, this is well-timed for me. January is enlivened only by Hattie Gandhi's birthday ...I always hate saying Good bye to Christmas decorations and this year struggled too with saying Good bye to departing students so I've been working on cheer-up strategies for all I'm worth. So far I'm trying
1. Candles...lots of candles, tea-lights, anything to bring pools of warmth and brightness into the house
2. A hyacinth or two about the place. My mother always used to remember to plant them in the autumn and they would lurk in the cupboard in the hall, their growth encouraged by the darkness, till they were ready to emerge as the Christmas cards came down, to fill the house with their scent. This year I failed even to buy a couple of bulbs to put in glasses on the window cill, but I did see some in the Co-op as I rushed out on Thursday, so they are on my shopping list for later.3. A tidy-up/clear-out session....I managed, finally, to take an accretion of bits to the charity shop last week and the combination of having cleared the space and also being able to switch off the guilty feeling that I hadn't already done so was thoroughly therapeutic. Yesterday I reshelved all my CDs, which had been waiting on the floor since the holidays because the CD rack had decided to buckle under the strain. Now they are back where they belong I feel more like playing them...which brings me to
4. Music. Lots of it. Nothing like singing along to a chunk of the B Minor Mass to life the wintery gloom I find....
5. And if all else fails, a golden retriever on the sofa is a great cuddling companion, and also a reason not to hibernate completely - sometimes winter walks can help too, specially if there's a heavy frost. Mud transformed to shimmering beauty (that sounds as if it ought to be a sermon reference)
If the day dawns when the puppy can't make me laugh, then all will NOT be well in my world. It's never yet happened, and if it does I guess I won't be blogging about it.
4 comments:
are you and I the only two people left in the world who spell it "cill" and not "sill"?
cheerful thoughts to you xx
I noticed the spelling - though I confess I would have gone for sill - I had no idea there was a different way (not that it's something I think I've ever had to write) - but such is my admiration of your intelligence that I automatically assumed 'cill' must be the correct way :-)
Hmm, that wasn't what I meant to comment on at all. I was going to say that I love the scent of hyacinths* and having failed miserably to be organised with bulbs this year ended up buying a whole heap of cut ones in the market and have been enjoying the smell.
*Oddly I don't like the look of them very much so when I've got bowls of bulbs I normally tuck them away behind photos!
Walks at midday are my medicine. I've suffered, in the past, quite badly, from winter depression (SAD?), but a couple of years ago I started going for walks at midday, when there's the best of sunlight. It was later in the Spring that I noticed how I hadn't needed any anti-depressants that winter, and I haven't since...
but I'm now fretting... I just can't remember whether I write sill or cill... suspect, given whic word I typed first.... no, as I read the preview i came to the view that I'd write cill, but now I'm not so sure...
need a cup of tea...
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