Dark days ahead

Is it still light out? 

Well, enjoy it while you can because at the weekend gloom time arrives, and there’s nothing we can do about it until Spring.

If you were looking for a nice, cheery, introduction, then you’re in to the wrong place. For the next four months or so, I’m declaring this column a sanctuary for those affected by WIMPEY (Winter Irritates Me Practically Every Year) Syndrome.

For fellow sufferers, the impending clocks-going-backness that occurs this weekend is a depressing alarm call, ringing in the debilitating fact that it’ll be dark at 5pm until March, Halloween is lurking ominously round the corner in a cheap mask from Tesco, and it’s mere days away from the Daily Mail carrying a “Weather Bomb/Worst Winter For a Generation” headline to make us feel even more forlorn.

Thanks to the brilliant decision to shove the clocks back by an hour, those afflicted by the unfortunate problem of a 9-5 job will no longer get to see the beautiful autumn colours. No, thanks to that stroke of genius it’ll be too dark to see, although the fact that the leaves will shortly be blocking drains should make driving home through the impending flooded roads all the more challenging. You can imagine the lovely, soggy, colours whilst waiting for the breakdown van.

For WIMPEYs, this is a traumatic time of year. Wrapped in multiple layers of clothing, they struggle to maintain an even temperature, as shops will soon be ridiculously over-heated, whilst simultaneously trying to compensate for having the doors propped open, whilst it’s -5C mere feet away.

With the sun barely straddling the horizon, they’ll be found squinting forlornly though their misted-up car windscreens at road junctions, or frowning impotently at people with their fog lights on, even though it isn’t foggy.

With the shops rapidly filling up with Christmas decorations, Slade’s “Merry Xmas Everybody” on loop everywhere, and being asked to choose what they want to eat at the work Christmas do with 6 weeks still to go (and being expected to remember on the day), their stress levels will be sky high - unlike their Vitamin D due to the absence of natural light.

Irrational envy of creatures who hibernate may also be observed, and, in extreme cases, violence may be seen when the John Lewis Christmas advert appears. Toughest of all is that, even after all that, Spring still won’t show up for another 2 months.

I’m WIMPEY and proud. I’d ask you to stand with me, my pasty-skinned brothers and sisters, but I appreciate that you’ll shortly be too tired and depressed for that. Save your precious energy, and feel free to sardonically raise an eyebrow in support.

So, enjoy your last couple of evenings of partial light, and batten down the hatches for the dank, dark, and dismal days ahead.

Unless you’re going on holiday somewhere sunny, of course. In which case, I’m a cheerful, positive and optimistic travelling companion, if you happen to have a spare ticket...

This post probably first appeared as my "Thank grump it's Friday" column, in the North West Evening Mail, on the 23rd of October 2015. I say 'probably', as it hasn't appeared on their website yet, nor have I received my copy of the paper in the post.

We seem to have gone into another period of no updates on the NWEM's website at the moment - my column from 2 weeks ago is still the most recent item on there. Should you wish to find out if that has changed, feel free to have a look round about here

I genuinely do dislike this time of year. With the clocks having gone back in the UK overnight, it'll now be nearly dark at 5pm, heralding 4 months of gloom, wearing multiple layers of clothes and generally being chilly, cold or overheated because most people don't understand how thermostatic valves on radiators work. Yes, there probably is a column in that one, but I suspect it might be a bit too niche and ranty, even by my preposterously low standards.

As if to prove that things really have changed, this morning's walk to the cafe on the coast involved three layers of clothes and plastic bags to put over the seats of the picnic tables to avoid wet arse syndrome. And the cappuccino went cold really fast. And the froth wasn't very good. And my ears got cold.

God, I hate this time of year...

(CD A-Z? Yes, STILL on B - Bowling For Soup's great "Drunk Enough To Dance" from 2002.)