Daylight fading, come and waste another year…

So, after thoroughly depressing everyone with my last whine-fest of a post, I decided it was time to tackle the issue head-on, and by “the issue”, I mean “the fact that I always spend the colder months of the year huddled up in a ball, rocking back and forth and muttering incoherently about The Darkness.” (Not the band, I hasten to add. That really WOULD be weird. No, I mean the actual darkness. That we’re about to be plunged into this weekend when the clocks change and the world is turned to eternal blackness.) It’s Amber Vs S.A.D, people. It’s ON. And I’ve decided to take a three-pronged approach. First up, there’s these guys:

Vitamin C to fend off the cold, and any other lurking lurgies (Which is totally going to be the name of my band, by the way. The Lurking Lurgies. We will sing melancholy songs about winter and hopelessness, and being forced to wear tights. It’ll be all kinds of awesome.) out there, and Vitamin D to make up for the fact that we’re not able to get much of it from the sun right now. (Mr D is standing a little apart from the Messrs C, here: it’s because he hates them. I was all, “C’mon guys, huddle up and give me a big smile for the camera!” but D was all, “Nuh-uh, can’t make me.” Apparently he think that because the C twins are brightly coloured and self-confessedly “effervescent”, they don’t take their role as vitamins seriously enough? He may be right.)

Then there’s the running. Last winter, you see, I noticed that I didn’t feel quite as wretched as I normally do, and I attributed this partly due to the fact that I managed to keep up my running regime, even in January and February, which I normally spend trying to find reasons not to get out of bed in the morning. OK, it was a milder winter than usual, so that probably contributed too, but I think pulling myself out of hibernation mode and actually forcing myself out into the fresh air had a lot to do with it.

This year so far I’ve been doing a lot less running. I’ve still been exercising, but because we’ve had so much rain, my regular running trails are all like swamps, so I’ve been choosing to do my Insanity workouts indoors instead. Yesterday, though, was a rare sunny day, so I went for a run, and felt SO much better for being in the sunshine for an hour. So much so, in fact, that when I got home I showered quickly and then dragged Terry and Rubin out for a long walk in the sun, too. And this brings me to point three in my plan: making the most of any drops of sunshine we’re lucky enough to get.

This is actually something Terry and I started doing this summer, when it rained so much we thought we were going to have to build an ark, and send the animals in two-by-two. And by “the animals” I mean “the shoes”. On the days when it stopped, though, we decided we may as well try to make the most of the nicer weather when we had it, so we basically dropped everything and went outside for as long as possible. We’re really lucky in that working from home makes that possible: we can take the afternoon off and then work in the evening, when it’s dark anyway, so we’ve decided that’s what we’re going to do this winter, too – basically get outside as much as we can, even if it means working through the night to catch up. Which it won’t, obviously, because by this time next week it’ll be dark by 3.30pm. GOD.

While everyone else is lapping up the amazing autumn weather, though, and talking about how it’s their favourite time of year, there is at least ONE person who agrees with me that it actually kind of sucks:

He spends a LOT more time in the bath at this time of year, that’s for sure, and while he thoroughly enjoys getting dirty, he’s not quite so keen on getting clean again. Don’t be fooled by the serious expression on his face, though: he’ll hate me for telling you this, but it has nothing to do with the prospect of the shower which awaited him at home – he’s absolutely terrified of walking over that bridge!

P.S. I wrote this post late last night. This morning, the sun basically didn’t bother to rise at all, and I almost didn’t either: round one goes to S.A.D…