Winter has returned with a vengeance.
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I am a summer person. I love nothing more than waking in the morning to bright sunshine and the knowledge that I will be warm all day, in light easy-to-wear clothes and sandals.
And yet, and yet, there are some things I simply love about winter that make my heart skip a beat when I wake to hear rain on the roof and wander around my dripping garden.
I love the opportunity to do as little as possible. I don’t have to water the garden or feel obliged to go for a hearty walk, or put out the washing.
I can give myself leave to just sit and read, or have an afternoon nanny nap, or go to a film, or even bake a cake. Ah! The freedom it gives me.
And then there are the clothes. While I enjoy the lightness and freedom that summer clothes offer me, it is the winter clothes that invite style and elegance, a cosy warmth, like comfort food.
I simply sink into the layered look and enjoy. They cover a multitude of sins...or I like to pretend they do.
In my study I have a rack of all my winter scarves. Scarf drawers are a nightmare. I throw all my winter scarves over the clothes rack and I’m able to grab one at a moment’s notice. Summer scarves are bundled away until winter has departed
I love scarves. Each one of them recalls a story of where I was, what I was doing when I purchased it, or who gave it to me as a present.
Whenever and wherever I travel I will buy a scarf to remind me of that particular time and place in my life. They’re much cheaper than shoes.
I glance over to that rack.
It has a decorative patterned scarf from Egypt which I visited three years ago. The Brotherhood was in power then, and Egyptians were fearful of their future. Today it is still a country struggling to find its identity again.
A felted scarf from Merimbula reminds me of my brother’s 80th birthday. What a great weekend of jazz and family.
A brightly patterned red woollen scarf is a reminder of fun weekends spent in Ballarat with girlfriends. We all once lived in the same town and shared the highs and lows of early motherhood together.
Lunch at the patisserie in Creswick and a new scarf at the Creswick Woollen Mills completes our weekend.
Here is an elegant black scarf from Hotham bought during a wedding in the snow season. We were snowed in… quite exciting!
I see a blue silk scarf bought at Apollo Bay on a long weekend in summer with old friends.
Next to it a beautiful warm hand-knitted brightly coloured scarf bought when I stayed with a close cousin in Flinders recently. I spent my school holidays on her family farm in Tyabb. Memories of those holidays still bring a smile to my face: horse riding (and frequently falling off), climbing huge eucalypts, playing hidey in the hay shed. That scarf transports me back to childhood instantly.
My favourite of all is a soft orange and red silk, light and warm, a birthday gift from the family.
So winter, bring it on.
I become mellow and calm. I relax. I slow down.
This is certainly not the “winter of my discontent”… to quote Shakespeare.
It is my time of quiet contentment.
ANNIE YOUNG