18 Jul 2014

On grey winter days


Dark when I go to work
Dark when I go home
Depressing

Relentlessly grey skies
bleak; no sight of the sun
it’s like this til December

Electric blankets, hot water bottle
laundry draped all around the house
I’m dreading the electricity bill

To find the silver lining in the seemingly permanent grey clouds that are dominating these winter skies (sunny days can be counted on one hand), I’m composing haiku to myself. Not proper haiku, I’m sure — I only remember it has three lines — but it’s something to pass the time as I drive home through the mist that hasn’t even got the guts to be Proper Rain. Proper Rain I could handle — ‘it’s good for the garden, we need the rain!’ we would all cheer — but this is just damp grey stuff that gets on your glasses and brings out the snails. Nuisance stuff, miserable stuff.

Everyone — everyone — here says ‘we don’t mind the cold, as long as it’s sunny. It’s when there’s no sun…’. That statement, so commonly offered up, is probably Hobart’s first law of winter. Or a truth universally acknowledged. Hobart’s second law of winter? If it is sunny, it’s probably Monday, when you’re back at work, stuck inside (third law: it cruelly disappears the minute you step outside at lunchtime).

Have you heard of seasonal affective disorder? SAD? We have it in Hobart, by the bucketload. The skies are dreary; you are dreary. It’s hard to muster the enthusiasm for any more demanding than a hot chocolate (that someone else makes for you). The clever/rich people escape to Bali or Queensland to escape it. But chances are, take your tropical trip in August or September, and you’ll come home to a snowy October.

I like extremes in winter weather — an expansive white frost, silent and pretty; noisy, heavy downpours that fill the tanks; snowy icing sugar dusted all over the Mountain. But these grey days, they are no winter wonderland. They are an endurance test. They are a misery.

16 comments:

  1. Stay warm e, I wish I could send you some winter sunshine x

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    1. what a kind thought - that in itself is very cheering, jane, thankyou :-)

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  2. You need some sun. I remember experiencing something like this living in NZ for a while, weeks and weeks of no sun, just low clouds hovering. And freezing. And dark.
    I'm loving our rainy days right now, but I must admit I have the luxury of not being required to turn up at an office job and being able to adjust to suit the weather a little more. And I suspect our days are a little longer than yours, being not so far south as you.
    Time to treat yourself to another hot chocolate :)

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    1. it would be great to live more in tune with seasonal hours and changes in light - i'm sure it would be kinder than forcing oneself to get up in the dark. then again, some days i might never get out of bed...
      and i think you're right about the hot chocolate today jacqui :-)

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  3. I hear you... bitterly cold in Canberra too, maximum yesterday was about nine degrees C and, as one soul said on Twitter... 'I'm not sure what the temperature is in Canberra right now but I think the wind chill just clicked over to minus bast*&rd'. Stay warm xo

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    1. i have been thinking of you this week lizzy; canberra has actually been colder than hobart most days lately. i love that tweet!
      we have snow all over the mountain this morning, which is at least something very pretty to look at (even if it does make it soooooo cold!)

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  4. Oh dear, I hope it brightens up soon. At least it's an excuse for staying warm and cosy inside. I hope you can find someone to make that hot chocolate for you. CJ xx

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    1. thank you CJ :-) we had sunshine over the weekend, a beautiful respite, but VERY frosty and foggy this morning!

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  5. I know how you feel. I grew up in Colorado, which has beautiful sunny skies all year round. Then I moved to Boston for school and stuck here. Oh the clouds. When it is cloudy for more than one day straight I start getting depressed. And it happens a lot. I really like my sun. The worst is when it drizzles for days. Ick. But at least we don't fight over water rights here. We get plenty of water from the sky for everyone's needs.

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    1. we are so attuned to sunshine, aren't we daphne? looking out the window now at the fog, as mysterious as it is, i think i could handle beautiful blue skies all year round.

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  6. Your first haiku has spelled out my life. Or so it feels at the moment. I live for weekends and a little time spent in daylight, even if it is grey and cloudy.
    I too love frost covered landscapes, or the grey mizzle of a low lying haze sweeping across a country view, but the joys of those landscapes never seem to translate to the drizzle of the suburban/urban views, especially when you can't stay inside in the warm and just look at the view. Sadly you have to got out into them. Not so enjoyable then.

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  7. mizzle - now there is a good word. and you're right, bek; all those extremes look beautiful in the countryside, but just grey and depressing in an urban landscape. maybe if it was new york or london, but not so much my side of hobart...

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  8. Anonymous23 July, 2014

    Yes, such grey winter days are difficult and they can have a pronounced effect on your thoughts which ultimately weigh you down. However, stay strong you because the Sun is rising earlier and the days are getting brighter. Look how glorious Hobart is today! 

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  9. hello anonymous hobart person! yes it is a wonderfully sunny day right now, at lunchtime. i will remind myself of this when the alarm blares me awake at 5.45am tomorrow morning...

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  10. Ah well, you know what they say...a good idea never came out of a warm climate. Actually I don't know who says that and I suspect they wouldn't own up to it anyway but it's good for a cold climate.

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  11. i have never heard of that louise! i would have thought the opposite - by the time you've dragged on the long johns and beanie and scarf and gloves and puffer jacket, you're too exhausted to think of anything beyond gettign thru the cold!

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