1.) (this
one is paradoxical) The sun
Winter
sunlight does not scorch your insides or burn your skin. It provides tempting nooks in your house for
you to lie in, soaking it up reptile-style.
You will miss it when summer comes and every time you step out the house
you have to smother yourself in layers of sunscreen (or avoid stepping outside
altogether).
2.) Hot
water bottles
Getting
into bed and curling your cold toes around something warm until your feet are
toasty and then hugging that delicious warmth to your chest whilst reading a
chapter of a book with only one hand out of the covers: it is the stuff of hallmark
cards, I tell you.
3.) Gluhwein
Spicy
red wine served still steaming in a mug providing all the comfort of tea with a
spicy alcoholic kick. If you are in
Grahamstown for the National Arts Festival, get yourself to Yellow House for a
mug of authentic German stuff. Mmmmm.
Which reminds me...
Yup,
this happens in winter in miserable Grahamstown. It just wouldn’t be the same in warm
weather. In some corner of my brain,
winter means shrugging yourself into four layers and a heavy coat and walking
briskly to the nearest theatre or hall that has been turned into a theatre and
watching some AMAZ!NG. Then it means
ambling over the Village Green for some fantastic, nutritious Vegetarian food and
wandering amongst the colourful stalls until it is time to start bar hopping
until everything else but the Long Table has closed and you end up having thought-provoking
conversations with people until four in the morning, when you finally shamble
out into the cold and make your way home through the deserted streets of
Grahamstown, only to start the whole process again the next morning.
5.) Fingerless
gloves
I
love these things. I can keep reading or
writing without my fingers freezing off and I think they look rad. I have a stripy pair and a grey pair that
extend up to my elbows for extra warmth.
6.) Spending
more time on the internet
I
recently blogged about my issues with the internet. At the moment though, it is too darn cold to do
much else in the evenings. So I have
been spending time finding some mighty interesting blogs out there. More anon...
7.) Tea
(ADDITION:
I had some input and am remedying some omissions. A warm thank-you to Yemu, Robyn and SJ.)
8.) Soup
A
bowl of soup is a beauty to behold. I
love the way the steam rises from the top and the way it is just packed full of
hot, vegetable nutrients. My favourite
memory of soup is, once again at the festival, but this time working at Wordfest and enjoying cup after cup of
pumpkin, chilli, orange and tomato soup from (the now sadly closed) Reddits.
9.) Rusks
I
have four words for you (or five words or three words and one hyphenated
monster word, I guess): hot-cross bun flavoured rusks. They taste exactly like hot cross buns, but
they are rusks. Best. Idea. Ever. And soon, I will be attempting to bake health rusks.
10.)
Snuggling under the blankets by the fire
and having good catch-up chats
Well,
you need a fireplace for this, technically, which is in no short supply in Hogsback,
I can tell you. On the Opera Company
camps, each cottage had its own woodstove (one of those old-pot-bellied stoves
that they rescued from the scrap heap) that would belch smoke so we would smell
like woodsmoke for the entire time we stayed there. We would have to tend that fire as carefully
as a baby. But golly, it kept us warm and
having brilliant, long conversations and storing up our strength for the
summer. I am not there this year, but that memory has a rosy glow around it, and somehow just remembering made me feel that little bit more restored.
