I haven’t been writing, at least not much. Certainly, less than I would like, and although I’ve done some reading, I’ve been researching less too. I tell myself, it’s the coming of winter, this sudden onslaught of snow and ice, that I'm in hibernation from the cold. Of course, that’s just one of the many, ridiculous excuses I can find for not getting on with my work.
Snow brings with it a tranquility. When the land is paper white, and the trees are wrapped in hoar frost, a stillness descends. Snow is transformative and deep snow, rarer these days, has a beauty that is undeniable. But I soon tire of it. I hate the cold and have always used it as an excuse to do less than I might. It turns me in on myself.
I wonder if this winter paralysis goes back to childhood: to frozen pipes and paraffin heaters, to no central heating, no hot water on tap, to being permanently cold, sat in my thin, regulation, school cardigan in a prefabricated classroom. I wonder if I'm not made for the North. After all I grew up in the South West, where the climate is gentler, more balmy than here in the North East. I am a child of rain, not snow. I guess you might call me a soft southerner.
Taken hostage by this cold snap, I've been bad tempered. Coming home to a cold house after a family jaunt, I had to give myself a good talking to and admit that I might indeed need to wear three layers instead of two, and that it was time to get my thermal T-shirt out of the cupboard. In the end I did just that, but something in me always resists. I resist acceding to the cold, sure somehow that it has nothing to do with me. I was made for warmer climes. Cold is my enemy.
Homelessness and the idea of sleeping rough out of doors in winter fills me with horror. I hate that the Big Issue seller, who's been coming to our town for years now, has to stand in the cold for hours in her headscarf, padded coat and boots, to sell a few magazines, sometimes none, while others fail to even acknowledge her, slipping into the warmth of a cafe to eat and drink. I saw her this week. I pushed a folded note in her hand but didn't get her a coffee as I was in a rush. I wish now that I had.
The beauty of snow is short-lived. I am grateful for the thaw, when the stillness that descends with the frost and ice, breaks. When time itself, seeming to have come to a standstill, moves on. It's time now to give up the comfort of Netflix and easy read crime fiction which have become my fodder in this cold snap. Time to 'get back to it,' the writing I mean, but also to the myriad other things I have to do.
As the air warms, I breathe out. I remind myself that despite the fact I’ve been gorging on gash TV, I have kept up my daily habit of writing five things - you can read about this practice here. Also, as the snow melts, I begin to make a list each day of what I've achieved. Doing this can surprise you.
Here is my list from Monday, when the snow was still on the ground: read submissions, wrote several long emails, exercised for half an hour to music, began the draft of my Substack essay, made chicken and vegetable soup, read this beautifully written review of Jane Fraser’s Advent, by the Unhurried Reader (If you love reading then you should definitely follow Unhurried Reader) and straight away felt this was my kind of book and I was right.
Advent is a book of place, and although I don’t come from the Gower - I come from North Somerset, from a town where we looked across to the Welsh coast - my grandmother was Welsh. And although it's set at the turn of the century it's full of images that remind me of my grandmother's home, of her small terraced cottage, of the way she cleaved a loaf of bread to her like a baby, holding it against her stomach as she cut thick slices from the top. I'm reminded of the tin bath by the fire, the toasting fork, the steep stairs and low ceilings, the iron bedsteads, the china bowls and jugs on the washstand. An exquisitely written and imagined story that I'm just itching to get back to.
Thank you for reading - and keep writing in this busy time, even if it’s just your five a day
Avril x
I was reading this piece quietly, letting a 'take' on winter that I recognised wash gently over me, and suddenly my name appeared. Thank you so much, and I'm so happy that you enjoyed both my review and Jane Fraser's book.
I share your horrors of freezing childhood winters. Once lived through, never forgotten.