Winter Musings

"Is it winter yet?", The Small Girl the asked me yesterday. I replied that I thought it must be winter; Halloween has passed, the clocks have changed and suddenly there's a festive chill in the air and it's getting dark at 4.00 in the afternoons.

I've always been a winter person, really. In Bombay, I fell in love with a hot climate: brightness and colour and clear blue skies and dusty pavements and listless, burning afternoons. But what I missed most about the West (apart from decent cheese) was the miserable British winter. Christmas on a beautiful Goan beach with cheerful, overdressed Indian Santas was fantastic, but to me, Christmas isn't really Christmas unless you're shivering in front of a log fire and complaining about the constant darkness and the driving rain.

Winter in Ireland is a particularly miserable affair. The bleak grey skies, the bare trees and constant drizzle, the ridiculously short daylight hours, make our little town seem desolate and empty. But without that contrast, our house wouldn't feel like the warm, cosy, welcoming place that it is becoming.

When we bought our house two years ago, I think people thought we were mad: it was cold and rambling, badly designed and obviously hadn't seen a coat of paint or a new kitchen fitting in at least 20 years. People here seem to have huge expectations of "home", and the trend is for new-builds with modern appliances, multiple en-suites and lots of marble and chrome. But coming from London, where we have altogether lower standards, DH and I didn't even need to discuss the fact that we would buy somewhere older, in need of renovation, and put our own mark on it.

It's a slow and painful process, especially with two young children, but I'm falling in love with our cosy, homely, characterful house, with all its quirks and eccentricities. I love the fact that we have made it our own and that the kitchen and breakfast room feel like a warm, inviting family space.

In fact, the only thing I dislike about winter is the constant helping on and off with coats, hats and scarves: the Small Girl and the Very Small Boy simply will not tolerate being strapped into their car seats bundled up in countless layers of clothing, so I find myself constantly taking their coats off and on while standing by the open door of the car in the rain.

"Well you're not a very good Mummy" said the Small Girl to me the other day, as she tripped along the High Street with me in the rain "because this coat isn't warm enough and I feel cold!".

I had obviously misjudged the severity of the high winds and lashing rain that day, but I tried my hardest to make it up to her: we spent a long and happy afternoon in the kitchen baking, and then we played a complicated imaginary game, warmed by the apple-pie heat of our ancient oven.