Winter's Coming

Winter’s Coming©

By Michael Casey

I decided yesterday that Winter was coming. How did I decide that, or should I say notice that. It was on the school run that my head and my big ears, and I do have big ears, felt cold. You can pull the hood over your head, but then it makes crossing roads more dangerous. If you have a hood up you cut down your field of vision.

So on the way home yesterday I promised myself to dig out my winter coat. So today I’m wearing my winter coat, and will be wearing it for a few months.  It makes me look as if I’m about to go skiing, skiing in Birmingham. There are a few hills where I live, but none as large as those in the Alps. So I may look the part especially with my shades on too, but sadly no après ski in Birmingham.

There is a freshness in the air too, you still cannot see your own breath, which is always fun from a child’s perspective, but your ears feel it.  So you have to dig out that silly woolly hat to go with your geese down coat. My daughters told me that my woolly hat was a woman’s woolly hat. I don’t agree or care about the gender of my hat, so long as my head and ears are warm.

Gloves are also required, now that Winter has poked it’s tongue out at us. I have 4 old pairs, I never throw things out, I’m not a gloves collector. My favourite pair is a red thinsulate pair, only they had holes in. So I had to sew my gloves back into life, sewing does actually give life back to our things. Gloves, socks or shirts we put new buttons on. By sewing we restore and renew our simple things. We have a favourite thing our mum gave us or knitted for us, we don’t want to throw it out, so we dig out the sewing kit.

Yes I can sew, every man should sew. Silas Marner did and so can I. I’ve just reminded myself of the film version, that would be a nice film to watch again while the Winter does its best outside, or the original book by George Elliot would be a good book for my daughters to read.

With Winter coming my attention turns to the shoe rack, I’ll dig out those horrible old clunky pair of brown leather shoes. I really hate the look of them but they are so good in Winter weather. I had some old proofing wax in the bottom of the sink unit, next to the old original bread bin, an antique now, just like me, anyway I squeezed the end out of the wax and proofed those shoes. So in theory those shoes will survive anything Winter throws at them. However there is a problem, and a slight stink, the proofing wax came from my last trip to Ireland and may be 20years old. It’s been under the sink in a tin for 20 years.

All in all I’m ready for Winter, our local shopping street is ready too, the Christmas lights are installed. Let’s hope the local council can afford to switch them on.