The nights get darker, the days get colder.

Winter is coming.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

As I drive home I can see that people have already put up their Christmas decorations. Are we really almost in December already? So many people are looking forward to a normal Christmas this year. I lost my Dad to Covid just before Christmas last year, I don’t share their enthusiasm.

My hands are getting chapped from the cold. The nights get dark around 16:00 which means I’m going up to the yard to feed my horse in the pitch black and the freezing cold. My head torch picks out the bright eyes of the foxes running free around the fields and the odd bunny rabbit who hasn’t yet huddled up for the night.

There are many stars visible in the clear sky. When my hands aren’t completely frozen, I sometimes pull out my phone and open the app which tells me what the stars are and where the planets are. It’s quite humbling to stand and stare at the small pink spot that is Mars. Despite the vast distance of over 33 million miles, mankind has somehow managed to land several robots on the surface. On that small pinprick of light, a robot is roving around, sending home pictures of a planet so unimaginably far away.

When I finally get home, I change into my comfy clothes and wrap up warm. My heating kicks in and I try not to think of how many pennies it is costing me to be able to sit in the luxury of warmth. I put cream on my hands but the damage is already done and the cream seeps into the cracks.

There are no Christmas lights or decorations in my house. I might put them up if I feel like it but I’m just not bothered. It’s also only November, far too early for decorations in my opinion. I do however have a guilty pleasure of watching Hallmark-type Christmas movies, mostly on in the background while I do other stuff. When it gets closer to Christmas, I will dig out the Christmas movies I like to watch every year as I love the magical feeling they invoke in my inner child.

I will see friends and family over the holidays but there won’t be any pub outings this year. The gatherings will be small and with select people. There are only a small handful of friends who really matter anyway. The friends who have your back and are there for you no matter what. The friends that you can be yourself with and suffer no…