Just as winter’s grip seems to ease, here we go again
“SO WE beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past”.
Re-reading F Scott Fitzgerald often gets me through the British winter. All those drowsy days, crisp suits and wild parties where rain never seems to stop play are the perfect escapism to the grey days of January and February.
I can pretend I am Dick Diver eating bouillabaisse on the Riviera after a cooling dip in the Med, rather than yet another bowl of leek and potato soup because I can’t face walking to the shops in the rain to buy anything else.
That final line of The Great Gatsby seems particularly fitting for this winter. For, whenever it shows signs of coming to an end, the whole damn thing seems to start over again.
The snowdrops may be out and daffodils showing, there are buds on the hedge that flanks my front path, and the chaffinches seem to be flitting about with increased urgency. But look up at the maudlin sky and it is like December all over again.
Oh, to be ensconced in the Hamptons, complaining about the “infernal heat” and sinking highballs to cool down.
Instead, I drape more blankets over the bed and don’t dare go anywhere without my waterproof jacket and a woollen hat stuffed low over my head.
After blazing Storm Doris, and that other one who shook a few trees this week and really did not deserve to be given a name, I am afraid there is more wintry weather this weekend.
Rain for most. Frost in the glens. Skies that are the greyest of grey.
The good news is that March 1 heralds the start of spring in the meteorological calendar and the Equinox comes on March 20. Try as this dastardly weather might, eventually winter will release its grip.
And so, today we beat on into another rain-lashed morning. Borne back ceaselessly to our beds.