Heading into winter, my favourite season of the year, there are two sides to it and I embrace both equally passionately: The Cold and Dark, and the Warm and Comfy. 

I am just as happy to be out in the cold air, in a dark forest, silence thick as the snow, looking for tracks and places where the deer sleep with my dogs around me sniffing the trail and leaping about in the snow, as I am to be in thick, warm socks, snug and warm clothing and a big soft jersey, with a hot cup of tea or hot chocolate, enjoying good music or some tv shows or a movie, with my dogs snoring around my feet.

Winter, for me, is a time of reflection and silence, and also a time of comfort and care for oneself, two sides as to everything. I become even more of a hermit in the dark months, than I am normally in the summer and spring. This winter will be different, as it doesn’t get very cold here and there is minimal snow (or so it seemed last year when we first got here – but there are mutterings from locals that “this one” could be a harsh one… I won’t hold my breath, but I would be pleasantly surprised) and I will also (once again) have my husband with me for a change.

Halloween, Samhain, is the start of MY time of the year, when I truly become “myself”, and I will relish every crisp morning, and cold evening and downpour and icy wind for the next couple of months. I will try and “store” the cold feelings in my head, so I can remember them when I’m sweltering in the Georgia summer yet again.

I still remember every single winter I saw in Germany. Each one was different, and each place we lived was different as well. The forests and fields will stay with me for the rest of my life – there is nothing like Germany in the deep winter, and I clung to the memory of those icy, dark days when our first summer rolled in here in the South. It helped a little bit. A smidgen.

The time has come for warm gloves and hats and scarves and winter boots and good jackets, and I cannot wait for it!

And one day soon, when our dreams come true (and, oh, they will come true) we will live in Colorado and I’ll get my snow and the dogs will learn to pull a sled and we’ll have a fireplace and a little cabin in the woods.