To absolutely hate winter?

[millefeuille1]

I don't mind the run up to Christmas as the lights and anticipation make it bearable, but January and February?? No! I have no energy and no mojo to make it better. I try so hard to make resolutions - read lots, go to the gym, declutter, plan new menus etc. but it never happens. All I want to do is hibernate.
I do love seeing snow fall (and then hate all the stress of driving in it), but mostly it is damp, dark, grey and cold.
It can't be right to hate a good chunk of the year? What is good about it?

I've told the kids that DH and I are moving to sunnier climes when we retire and I mean it. I'm not spending my last days living in cold, wet, drab Scotland with icy pavements that haven't been gritted, roads that aren't cleared and endless darkness. The bright, crisp days are so rare that they don't make up for the months of misery.

I lived in the UK for over 50 years and never minded the winters (London, though). Now I'm in Australia, which does have winters, though mostly with clear blue skies, I notice the difference. It's the light, or lack of it that makes a winter miserable.

While I didn't come Australia for the weather, and think it's silly reason to come here, I would miss it if I came back to the UK. That piercing light.

Sir, do the kids want to go? When I went to Australia, California and Florida, each time my first thought was "what a great place to grow up". Places like Perth don't get much below 15. I am a dedicated Londoner, but it was literally my first thought....imagine if teenage years (which I loved) had not been punctuated by the misery of winter. It's like having life on hold a few months a year whilst assembling enough brain to do the most basic tasks. Not to mention the cold and dreich....

Echt, how anyone can describe weather as a silly reason, I don't know. I met a lady who moved to Spain practically the day after her second parent passed on.

It's not a silly reason, look at suicide rates in extreme northern sun deprived cold dark places.

I am living in Africa and one of the reasons I look forward to leaving is to escape the relentless sun!!! But I have always disliked hot weather and preferred autumn and winter.
It never hides behind a cloud, it is a constant fight to find shade.
We are waiting for rainy season, I have not left the house for 2 days it is so hot. Clouds keep appearing and blowing away, the land is parched, people are waiting to plant their crops.
I think I will be running around in the rain with the children when the rain comes!

Sorry to derail thread a bit, just feels good to find somewhere to vent my frustration!

thedevil, good point re suicide rates. I am also worried about it hitting me harder as I get older but I guess at least every winter is part of a countdown to retirement.

'In Canada you get extremely cold days but teamed with blue skies and sunshine it is more bearable because everything twinkles.'

Doesn't Canada also get 5 months of snow?

I'll take a UK winter over Canada's any day of the week!

Well the worst thing about a British summer is the disappointment of unmet expectations. The death of the dream. Every sodding year.

I quite like that I don't have to worry about that in Winter as it's consistently shite, and I don't expect anything more.

magpie, why is there a death of a dream?! no offence, but if you're old enough to be on the boards, you're old enough to know what a UK summer is like?

a pessimist is never disappointed

Lorelei - the kids will be grown up when we retire, but they are very welcome to come and visit! I would have loved for them to have grown up in a warmer climate - but sadly neither of us have jobs which transfer outside of the UK easily.

sir, that's a shame.

I reckon we could have a good contingent of MN move to California or Florida

am making my nth warm drink of the day. Meh.

I reckon so - a Californian MN meet up sounds quite good, doesn't it?!

I went to work in the dark and have come home in the dark. My intake of vitamin D today has been precisely zero. And it's cold, wet and miserable.

I'm a winter baby. Ive always loved the snow and how it sits on the landscape. But since ive grown up its not so fun, because of chores. when you're a child or young teen you can wrap up sit in your warm rooms or wrap up play out return knowing thered be a hot meal when you get in.

In winter its bloody a pita to cook in the kitchen, Asian cooking window must be open the fan is not enough steams up. I had 1 kitchen it was so small and the window was tiny i had no choice even though it was snowing heavily to open the garden door and cook and it was damn cold like bitter (Scotland)

Things like this my mum must have endured when i was little. Even getting the milk bottles in, which we don't have to do now. I recall them being frozen mum would put them in water to defrost. Garden door iced up can't open it, defrosting door lol.

Clearing snow off drive or footpath. Kids have it so easy.

I can't tolerate the cold in the house, I seem to feel colder inside more weird? Outside i wrap up well and soon as I'm walking I'm fine heatwise i love it.

i don't think i love winter enough now, i want to move to a warm country in Europe when I'm older. With age i think ill feel it more. It's no good for arthritic bones or those with lupus and similar issues.

Snow is beautiful though its almost out of this world to me i wont ever hate the snow, just the cold lol

YANBU. I loathe the cold, the grey, the damp, the drizzle the awful depressing nature of it all. So I left the UK for sunny climes 8 years ago. It is sunny and blue skies 360 days a year, I can't tell you much better my mood and outlook is.

the uk is made up of relentless cold and rain though, its not just restricted to winter the cold. Rain is by far worse than snow, maybe not in terms of driving but in every other way. sit with soggy clothes or wet hair at work eugh or on arriving at an appointment its the most horrid feeling.

Get wet in the snow it feels great!

Ahhh I moved to the Caribbean because I couldn't abide the UK winters and although Christmas is great fun in London, it doesn't make up for the relentless greyness of everything. I think 17 January has to be the most miserable day of the year though closely followed by 3 February. 17 January the festivities are far behind you, you've probably already failed at your new years resolution, you haven't lost the Christmas weight you put on eating all those Terry's Chocolate Oranges and you have probably quit booze for the month - fucking dire! And 3 February is smack back in the middle of the misery, you're surrounded on all sides. Another 8 weeks until the clocks spring forward. Yes, February was always the most awful month for me.

I was thinking about this yesterday and I swear to god, that if you could guarantee me a 3 months of winter, 3 months of spring, 3 months of summer and 3 months of fall, I would move to that place in a heart beat (I'm looking at you Toronto) - it's the knowing what you're going to get that makes me feel better.

When I lived in London I used to love that feeling on the first warm day of summer when it's a little crisp in the air but you're wearing flip flops and a cardigan and the weatherman says it's going to warm up to 25oc today and you can smell summer in the air. Only to have it all come crashing down because the next day it's back to pissing rain and 14oc. That's the disappointment that I can't cope with. It makes me really angry and I genuinely think I have SAD.

Although I wholeheartedly miss seasons and am flying up to NYC in 2 weeks and am looking forward to cold weather, I feel much happier waking up to sunshine and warmth every day here. And when we have rainy weekends I love them because I can bundle up inside with my kids and know it won't last for more than a few days.

I do have massive rose tinted glasses about winter though, in my head its all roaring fires and eating steak and guiness pie in an O'Neill's pub listening to the Pogues and drinking Baileys (which may have been Christmas Eve one year in my early 20's.)

The person who said up thread about pavements not being gritted has got it so right. Last year near us the pavements weren't gritted for a month, and the ice just set solid on them. The local hospitals had a massive increase in the amount of broken legs. After a month of outcry the council decided to grit them.

A month of ice on the pavements?!How is that ever OK?

One of the reasons I moved to Oz was the weather, I was so sick of the fucking rain in Ireland. The only reason I own a coat here is for the three months in winter when its a bit parky early in the morning when I go to work. Its an absolute joy going to work in little summer dresses and not even having to carry a cardigan! And its not even summer yet! The sunny weather has improved my life immeasurably as has the beautiful brightness, I actually worry about how I would cope when we visit UK or Ireland on hols. So yeah, I really recommend emigration as a wonderful cure for SAD.

Orange - I think that was me. I did invest in a pair of yak trax and they've been great, but they don't work so well on pavements which only have intermittent, very thin sheets of ice that you can't see, iykwim?

Stroke and Glasto, I envy you both so greatly! DH and I were going to do something like that - we even had a sponsor for Australia - but dh got cold feet and wouldn't budge from the cold miserable greyness of the UK and being close to his mum. TBH, I find it hard to be sympathetic when he moans about it

Aww Jux, to be honest if it hadn't been for the crippling recession in Ireland I'm not sure I would have been able to pluck up the courage either, but I'm really really glad I did! I wish I could send you some sunshine! I really do.

Lorelei, I am usually a pessimist/realist with most things, but every year I hope upon hope that we will get something of a summer, and we never do (doesn't help that i live in the NW). Some summers we kind of did, eg 2013, 2006, so that keeps the flame of hope alive, but let's face it more often than not they're a washout. At least in winter my expectations are pretty low so I'm never disappointed. although we don't seem to get any decent snow where I Live either. Just rain rain rain rain rain...

I think you've got to make some kind of rituals for it. We moved to Germany and there's a big festival/carnival in February where all the kids dress up and that seems to get you halfway to Easter with just something in the middle.

We had planned to do an annual trip home in Feb, too, but haven't quite managed financially yet.

Is it true that anything under -10 is more bearable than the region between -10 and 0?

another sunny day here today, we get two whole extra hours of sun a week (mid Suffolk) compared to other rural bits of UK so that's nice for me 😎