Totally Dreading Winter

[birling16]

My thinking is I'm OKish menatlly at the moment. Not much in the wellness bank though. I absolutely know mood will deteriorate when the darkness comes.
Have a SAD lamp and know about nutrition and so on. I just find it a slog.

Me too - it’s so hard, I just about get through it each year. I know in my heart that I did nothing wrong, but it’s lonely.

I know how you feel @Crunchymum .

I spent last summer cutting & stacking firewood for this winter. The chimney sweep is booked on Oct 20th. I hope we won't need the heating before then. The house is still fairly warm.

I have 2 single glazed windows yet to be replaced, so have interlined curtains for those, and have added a big rug for the sitting room floor. I've cleaned the sky lights so they let in as much light and warmth as possible.

I've switched to winter food already, home made soups for lunch, stews or chilli for supper with plenty of fruit & veg. The nice thing is putting the slow cooker on low before I leave for work, and it's ready when I get it. And I've stocked up on cheap Tesco vitamin tablets.

The only things I'm struggling to find are warm tops for work. Viscose isn't warm at all and I can't wear polyester because of the static & where I work. I want tidy lambswool tops but can't find them anywhere 🙁

I'm with you OP - I absolutely loathe winter and the endless dark nights after being in an office or in front of a screen all day. I walk the dog in the dark and cold in the mornings and try not to slip on the ice and frost, and although I also walk him at lunchtime when I'm wfh which does help, it's not much fun in the horizontal rain or sleet if it's peeing down in my lunch break. I do the usual - meeting friends, get outside as much as possible at the weekends, have a winter craft project, have all the right outdoor gear etc - but ultimately I don't like being stuck indoors under artificial light or being outside in layers or clothing or eating casseroles, it robs me of joy. Commuting in the pitch dark is also not something I look foward to either.

I too detest Winter and get very down. SAD lamp did nothing to help. Last Autumn I read a book about hygge and it changed my view a bit.

So I tried to embrace it - blankets, candles, nice food, mulled wine etc. Also put together a list of Winter things that I don't tend to do any other time of year - jigsaw puzzles, baking cakes, reading, box sets etc.

It did help the time pass more easily. This year I'm also going to celebrate the Winter solstice with a little party and celebrate the shortest day being gone and the light beginning to return.

@frozendaisy says "What about bellringing?" Agree - my sister does this. It's clearly the most wonderfully sociable activity, plus good for exercising your brain, plus upper body strength, plus maintaining a uniquely English change-ringing tradition, etc. Check it out?

@TheatricalLife says "It's also the little things like not being able to dry my washing on the line as quickly". Hell yeah. Not sure if this helps, but I found buying a small de-humidifier to help my laundry dry indoors was a game-changer. It's oddly satisfying when you empty the plastic tank and see litres of water disappear down the drain rather than forming colonies of mould on all available surfaces.

@Thissickbeat says "My house gets very little sun in winter, garden gets none at all, but it gets the full force of the wind and rain on one side. I worry about leaks and tiles all the time." Sympathy - been there, done that. When I retired I made sure to downsize and buy a tiny south-facing house. Makes such a difference. Plan ahead!

Me too. I feel down in the dumps and full of aches and pains now until about April. It absolutely sucks.

i now live up north and I love the sunrises up here. Pink skies almost everyday. I don't remember seeing this in the south. Maybe I'm mad though.