Winter...

[fajrdrako]

Yes, it's cold, snowy and icy - but when I leave work now, it's still daylight. And when I get home, it's not quite entirely dark yet.

This cheers me up a lot.

Comments

[kikibug13.livejournal.com]

Oh.

They promised us snow _finally_ for today (Friday)! I hope they got it right... 15-18 Celsius isn't right. *grins* but light is good!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

You want snow?

Sigh. I could offer you plenty. It's just... sitting there, lying all over the place.

Yes, light is good!

[glinda-north.livejournal.com]

Word, sister. *g* It was just this evening I noticed that the sky was still light when I got home and it was like a weight off my shoulders. I'm not a big fan of the cold but the dark of winter is what really gets to me.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I always thought I was okay with the dark, so it's a bit of a surprise to see how happy I am to see it light just a little later. Maybe it's the sense that when work is over, the day is already gone?

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

I think that's it for me (that the day is already gone once work is over). Hate that.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes. It's sort of oppressive.

[duncanmac.livejournal.com]

For me, it's even more extreme ... I finish work less than an hour before midnight.

If I hadn't objected and pointed out the lack of bus service at that hour, my current employer would rather have me work till 1:30 in the morning. :-(

Still seeing the sun as you go home is a definite sign of spring ... even if the outdoor temperature is downright arctic. [I admit it -- my ability to cope with -40 degrees, a legacy of growing up in Winnipeg, is pretty much kaput.]

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, but you know there is no time of year you'd have daylight when you do home. And presumably you have daylight when you leave for work!

I can't cope with the cold weather now either. I grumble mentally every moment I'm out of doors. Let's hope it doesn't last long.

[glinda-north.livejournal.com]

That's it, I think. I know when I get home from work, and it's been dark for a couple of hours already, I'm ready to go to bed. Even if it's only 6:00pm.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly - half the time I don't even want to think! Just to sleep.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

It *is* going to be spring soon. They promised. Besides, I have bulb sprouts in my yard all of an inch tall.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

You have sprouts? You have a yard, not just a pile of snow? I am impressed!

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

I live in western Washington. Our snow (in the years we get it -- we don't get snow every winter) only lasts a week or so at the most. Right now we've just got a lot of fog, and hard frost on the ground.

And, yes, I have sprouts. Also a couple of hardy cyclamen (http://tinyurl.com/2dp3zj) in full bloom. We have a very good climate here, very much like the British Isles.

Where are you?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Beautiful! I haven't seen a flower out of doors in months, and won't for several months to come. I'm in Ottawa, in Eastern Ontario, right in the middle of a snow belt - we usually have many feet of snow on the ground right from December to April. This year there has been less snow than usual, but the ground is still covered by a few inches everywhere and it will probably be there for some time.

Nobody would ever think of comparing us to the British Isles. The temperature today is waaay below zero.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

I used to live in the Lake Erie lake effect snow belt (in northern Ohio). You have my sympathies. Every year I lived in the Midwest, about this time of year, was when I re-memorized the location of every conservatory/greenhouse/etc. within a hundred mile radius. I grew up in a climate (mostly in California) where it's green in the wintertime and brown in the summer, so having things turned topsy-turvy really got to me. It's horrible to live in a place where most of the trees look dead for six months out of the year, which is what deciduous trees look like to me in the wintertime.

I still don't grok climates where it's humid in the summertime and dry in the winter, rather than the other way around, either [g].

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I guess a lot of it has to do with what you're used to - I love the look of deciduous trees in winter, all black and leafless. And the contrast of dark pines with white snow. Yes, I like the look of winter, but it's inconvenient... and uncomfortable.

I found the summer dryness of California hard to get used to when I visited. I don't cope well with desert climates, on the whole. I don't think I've ever been there in the winter.

That being said, there's no place I don't like to see, and I generally love the west coast.

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

Well, we're dry in the summer, and this is decidedly not a desert climate [g]. And I like the look of evergreens against snow, too. We have lots and lots and lots of douglas firs and spruce here. And a few deciduous trees -- maples and alders, mostly.

I like our rainy winters. What most people don't realize is that the rainy Pacific Northwest gets less than an inch of rain a month on average in July, August, and September.

I enjoy visiting climates like yours. But I would be so green-hungry right now if I lived there it wouldn't even be funny.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Our appetite for greenery is well rewarded when spring comes, if we have the patience and stamina to wait that long. That's why people flock to Cuba in February!