Escape?

It comes as quite a shock today. There’s actually a hint of blue in the sky. Although the ground is sodden, it isn’t actually raining. It seems about the first time in about a month. However, the day still seems pretty gloomy & dark.

Yesterday we found ourselves both admitting that the weather is getting us down. As we went along to the surgery to collect my repeat prescription, we couldn’t help wondering if we shouldn’t have a break in January, after the Christmas chaos, somewhere where there’s a bit of sun, even if it’s not necessarily hot.

We mentioned the idea to the receptionist at the surgery. She replied that she’d tired doing that one year, to find it even more depressing when she got back & was once more faced with the gloom.

We know the feeling. One year we had visited France in the autumn. It had been warm & sunny where we’d stayed. However, as we travelled north in France, the weather was changing. When we got up on the ferry at Hull the following morning we couldn’t even see the land. It had disappeared under a curtain of grey rain & wetness.

However, this time we would be prepared for such a feeling & we are seriously beginning to wonder if just a bit of good quality light isn’t necessary for our morale.

We went along to the village pub later on & joined some friends. She was looking at the newspaper. We commented how the weather was getting us down. We ended up looking at the weather forecasts through the world. I discovered it’s sunny in Barcelona, a city I’ve been fancying seeing for a while. Maybe a weekend there would be the answer. We’ll see. Meanwhile we will sit it out a bit longer & hope the weather improves.

It’s strange in some ways the weather isn’t so bad. It’s remarkably mild for December. However, I can cope far better with an absolutely freezing, but bright day. All this greyness is just getting us down.

I’m reminded of a comment of Mr P, the music teacher from the Pub days, who has many friends in Finland. He commented one year there was a real crisis in Finland that winter as it hadn’t snowed much, which meant the short, rather dark, days were even darker (normally the snow reflects & amplifies what little light there is) & there were more suicides that year. I can understand the urge.