Beating the winter blues

Hello and welcome to the latest blog from The Olivia Rose Diaries on November 18^th 2023.

We’re just over a month away from the shortest day. For those admirable people who resolutely manage to see the light at the end of every tunnel, this can be seen as a positive date for the diary. After December 21^st we’re heading towards spring and things can only get better.

However, on a particularly grey and depressing day earlier this week, when those elusive positive vibes were hiding beneath the bed covers and refusing to show their faces, the winter solstice seemed a far distant event and did nothing more than confirm that I still had many winter months stretching out interminably before me. I have always struggled at this time of year, being the perfect candidate for the winter blues, or SAD to give it the technical term, and knew that I needed to take action before I turned into Little Miss Miserable and the day would be lost.

I have a number of ploys to gently push me back into a positive outlook when the skies are grey and the nights seem too long: going out for a walk or a bike ride, although this is never so appealing in the rain, doing some yoga, or dreaming up a project to give me a new focus. I told myself it might cheer me up if I made a warm, winter soup or, and this really is scraping the bottom of the barrel, did some cleaning. I’d still be miserable but at least I’d feel virtuous. Nothing worked. In desperation I fled to the caravan in a bid to write myself into a better frame of mind.

I opened up my lap top, hoping inspiration would strike and I could write about something uplifting, but my fingers started tapping away of their own volition and they weren’t done with the topic of the winter blues. Mostly it was a random stream of thoughts and feelings but two things stood out and I thought I would share them with you as I know I am not the only person who is fed up with the winter.

The first point related to my attitude, this conviction that we all need to beat the blues, that it is a battle that we must win. But maybe sometimes its ok when you simply can’t ‘pull yourself together’. It’s not pathetic to have down days in the depths of winter. The seasons turn and our moods naturally turn with them. In fact, you could say that it’s simply part of our connection to the natural world around us, and I can take comfort from that thought.

Secondly, I recalled some words of wisdom from an old friend of mine, shared during one of our many heart-to-hearts over the years. She said that whilst today might not be so great, tomorrow is always around the corner and has the potential to be a much better day. The trick is to keep your head down on the difficult days, plod on through, and have faith that you’ll wake up to sunshine the next day, or maybe the day after, even if it’s the metaphorical kind rather than in reality.

I sat in my cosy writing den, mulling over these thoughts, and felt my spirits lifting. Outside the wind was working itself up into a tantrum, small branches clattering down onto the roof, and the rain was visibly gusting across the field. I was going to get wet on my walk back down the track to Le Shack, but my spirits still remained high. Sometimes all it takes is one little sentence to strike a chord and turn the day around, to give a different perspective.

I pulled on my waterproof jacket, locked up the caravan and headed into the rain. I had left Michael in the kitchen, making that hearty winter soup, and I knew a good lunch wasn’t far away, another good reason to be cheerful.

That’s it for this week. If you’re fighting with your own winter gloom I hope the above might be helpful.

See you soon. And something completely different is coming in the next blog as we are off house-sitting next week. Pastures new and a three-legged whippet await us!

MJ