Preparing for Winter V

MingVase

I'm not going to type what I want to say about the UK gov, I'll get banned. Sewing lips shut as I speak.

Which let me tell you, is not easy.

pollyanna_26

Primrose said:

Goodness, i'dd better not blink tomorrow and miss my two whole extra seconds of daylight !  .  I HATE the winter months and low light levels and would happily hibernate un til Spring comes.  The older I get the more of an endurance test winter seems to become!

Inspired by mole in the Wind in The Willows I've wondered for years if human hibernation could be possible after readfing the books to the children we also watched the TV version and that scene of Mole waking up from his winter rest stayed in my head. There seemed something comforting about having rested thrrough the dark days and waking to a lovely sunny day.

I'm sure if such a thing did exist the very wealthy would have adopted it  and as they still move among us haven't come up with a solution apart from taking themselves somewhere hot for the duration.

pollyx

littlemoney

Primrose said:

Goodness, i'dd better not blink tomorrow and miss my two whole extra seconds of daylight !  .  I HATE the winter months and low light levels and would happily hibernate un til Spring comes.  The older I get the more of an endurance test winter seems to become!

I'm the same, perhaps it's another side effect of getting older. Dark days and long nights are bad enough, but christmas makes December ten times more depressing.

MrsCD

Must admit my heart gives a little skip when I think the days are slowly getting longer, from today, but I really love Christmas! DD is isolating until 27th, so far has a very bad headache and starts to flag around teatime, so our Christmas will be a bit different this year. We're planning a get together next week instead to open presents and have a meal together. 

littlemoney

MrsCD said:

Must admit my heart gives a little skip when I think the days are slowly getting longer, from today, but I really love Christmas! DD is isolating until 27th, so far has a very bad headache and starts to flag around teatime, so our Christmas will be a bit different this year. We're planning a get together next week instead to open presents and have a meal together. 

My sympathies to your DD. I am isolating for Christmas day, not due to covid, but everywhere is closed and everyone I know are seeing family and friends that day.

nannygladys

Laura_Elsewhere - I'll watch that tomorrow, it might be worth having a go on a pair of them to see what difference it makes.

Nannyg

Renoir64

pollyanna_26 said:

Primrose said:

Goodness, i'dd better not blink tomorrow and miss my two whole extra seconds of daylight !  .  I HATE the winter months and low light levels and would happily hibernate un til Spring comes.  The older I get the more of an endurance test winter seems to become!

Inspired by mole in the Wind in The Willows I've wondered for years if human hibernation could be possible after readfing the books to the children we also watched the TV version and that scene of Mole waking up from his winter rest stayed in my head. There seemed something comforting about having rested thrrough the dark days and waking to a lovely sunny day.

I'm sure if such a thing did exist the very wealthy would have adopted it  and as they still move among us haven't come up with a solution apart from taking themselves somewhere hot for the duration.

pollyx

They said on QI that it was a thing amongst French rural peasants. That they would stay in bed through the coldest months of the year, stirring only to eat. 

Working_Mum

All this talk of light and winter etc  so I thought I'd I read a book called "Wintering" by Katherine May

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/feb/04/wintering-how-i-learned-to-flourish-when-life-became-frozen-katherine-may-memoir-review

It helped me put a new slant on Winter - I loved it.

Laura_Elsewhere

Renoir64 said:

They said on QI that it was a thing amongst French rural peasants. That they would stay in bed through the coldest months of the year, stirring only to eat. 

And presumably to do all the hard labour that near-subsistence farming needs done in winter, from looking after livestock and helping with birthing ewes through to all the hedging and ditching that must be done before spring, and so on...

Not sure I'm convinced by QI's version  

MingVase

Crofters up north here took the livestock into the other end of the longhouse for the winter and let them out again after 1st Feb when the ewes are ready to breed.  So they might've got away with a semi-hibernation;  also remember how short the days are in Scotland in winter - not much time to do anything apart from getting wood or peat in for the fire.