A WINTER’S TA LE
As the cold, dark nights start to bite, Ned has an unexpected epiphany
“The world lit up in LED flashes in front of me, like a strobing black and white silent film from the 1920s”
Iused not to understand people who claimed to like winter. They were, self-evidently, liars. Or so I thought.
Take my mum, for example. I have long believed her to be a liar. As soon as October comes along with its first rattle of bones and chill wind from the west, she will express a longing for autumn to begin in earnest. In this way she is no different from people who purport to like modern art and Guinness. Just because it’s unorthodox and somehow suggestive of hidden depths to appreciate such perversities, it doesn’t mean you should actually claim to enjoy gazing at a stack of bricks or gulping down a drink that looks like tar and tastes like earwax. So it is with autumn, and its ghastly descendent, winter: they are obviously crap, when compared with the endless light and warmth of a summer’s day.
“I love the colours,” Mum’ll say, mendaciously. “The browns, the reds. That first frosty morning.”
Trying to put myself in her shoes, I would squint at whatever view we were both enjoying, and imagine there was something soothing and peaceful in the sight of mouldering leaves rotting before they drop to the damp earth, leaving behind a ghostly skeleton of a tree. Where once there was fresh wonder, vigour and growth, there was now only the deathly realisation of all that lay ahead; November and darkness, December and darkness, January and darkness… you get the idea. The plodding British winter in all its unreasonable length, with the certain knowledge that March was not even the end of it, and that April would still be freezing.
And yet, something within me has changed. For the first time, I realise that my mum might genuinely yearn for that tipping point when summer recedes, and the cold rushes in. Perhaps it’s age. I am, after all, catching my mum up. Now that I am 50, I feel a distinct change coming on.
Riding back from dinner in the centre of London last night, my jacket zipped up to my nose and a flat cap pulled down almost over my eyes, I suddenly found myself embracing the onset of winter. Each breath visible in the night air, accompanying each pedal stroke, and the world lit up in LED flashes in front of me like a strobing black and white silent movie from the 1920s, I felt a surge of excitement at the new season, with its sour air, subliminal whiff of bonfires and mulled wine.
The ride was only half an hour, but it left a huge impression. Even when safely home and falling asleep, my mind’s eye kept replaying the moving scenes. London is best viewed at night, when the squalor and rough edges recede and you can trick yourself into thinking that it’s a landscape of twinkling starlight and wonder. It’s best appreciated in winter, when the wind whips little waves on the Thames and the moon hides behind the Shard.
And, it goes without saying, it’s best experienced on a bike. With the right leg of my jeans tucked firmly into a thick woolly sock, and a £1 pair of gloves keeping the chill off my fingers, the cityscape drifts by at just the right pace. Walking would be too ponderous and stolid, and the hectic view from the steamed-up window of a train, rattling through the night, too jarring. But the leisurely unfolding of the panorama, seen at the stately pace generated by these half-century old legs of mine, seemed to match the mood and fold the moment into perfection.
So, you see, things change. There was a time, not long ago, when I’d have ridden home clipped in, armoured up, and racing; taking the highway, rather than the byway. But like many things in life, a fuller appreciation of the world comes in time. As TS Eliot wrote, ‘I grow old... I grow old... I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.’
Perhaps Mum was right. Winter may not be hell after all. But modern art and Guinness still are.