Layers, layers, layers, and more layers

Embracing winter

Hello from that part of the UK winter where wearing so many layers has become a bore and the days still seem overly short.

Congratulations to anyone who takes their layers of clothing off one by one rather than in a single bulky go. At the risk of repeating myself … actually I’m going to go one step worse and not just repeat myself but quote myself … I’ve written about the layering ‘problem’ before:

Vest, t-shirt, jumper. One big chunky clothing sandwich. But then, when you try to put it all on again in one go, you get both arms back through the jumper okay but only one arm through the vest, plus the other arm’s through the neck of the t-shirt. So then you have to take them off again and re-layer one by one, which would have been the smarter thing to do in the first place. There’s also that strange game of reverse strip poker as fate asks: Which item of clothing can you no longer put back on because it’s fallen splat down on the damp and not-very-clean-looking [swimming-pool changing room] floor? (This week, it was a sock; surely the worst of all items to go without?)

– Read the full post from my series about learning to swim better

That’s the complaining done, onto some appreciation. I’m sure I’ve probably written about this before, too, but when I get to this point in the season, I remember my wise friend Sophie’s words about not wishing winter away and instead making the most of all the seasonal things there are to enjoy: open fires, roast dinners, crisp air, candles, wool blankets, seeing into trees and through hedges, being awake in time for sunrise …

The more I think of all the lovely wintery things there are to do while we still can, the more I’m grateful for January and February in the UK.

Close-up photograph of my right wrist encased in three different layers of clothing: a raspberry-coloured wrist warmer, a chunky yellow jumper cuff, and the sleeve of a blue woollen coat.

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This post was written while listening to Frank Wilson’s Do I Love You (Indeed I do) – which I imagine being sung directly to winter.

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