I do love winter, but…

I love winter. Not because of any fondness for Christmas (if it were up to me, I wouldn’t bother at all) or for snow, but simply because this time of year is magical. The light is different. The air is different. And it’s perfectly okay just to curl up at home and think how lovely it is not to have to go outside (as long as you don’t have to…!).

I have to say, though, that it’s not perfect. I posted earlier that I like it getting dark in the afternoons – and I do. I love the long summer evenings too, but somehow it’s nice to be able to get in at the end of the day and it feels like it’s properly evening instead of still being like midday.

However, that’s not the whole story. I like it getting dark, but I could still do with a bit more…daylight, y’know?

Take this example. I have a net curtain thing across my window. My mother took it down to wash one day because she said I wouldn’t notice: after all, it’s dark when I leave in the morning and dark when I get home in the afternoon. So the curtain is washed and put back up again, and sure enough, I didn’t notice.

I do occasionally get home with a little daylight left or open the curtains in the morning if it’s a particularly light day, so I did see the physical evidence of the curtain being there. However, it wasn’t until the weekend that I realised man, my curtain is CLEAN!

No, really. It’s white. I’d forgotten it used to be white under there! It doesn’t really matter, though, as in the half-light that comes in the mornings and evenings, you can’t really see it at all. In daylight, its luminious cleanliness illuminates the room, but hey, how often do I see this thing in daylight? Uh, twice a week…