I have figured out how to enjoy the morose and sombre winter, folks.

You have to just not live in a city.

During the November challenge last year, I wrote this post about winter being depressing, and as I write now with the view of the beautiful countryside in front of me, I feel the truth of winter joy. I feel like I love the cold air, I love when it’s cloudy and the clouds drape themselves over the distant hills like soft fluffy scarves. I love the wind so violent and wild, pummelling trees so they always turn inland. I love the sea, smashing wildly against the edge of the wall of an inland bay, the spray sailing high above my head.

On the Isle, I have taken my children out in the biting cold every single day. Rain, wind, storm, sunshine, snow. They have loved it, of course. I have never known my children to complain about being outdoors.

Makes me more determined to get out in nature everyday. Even when I am back home, and nature is not as wild and beautiful as it is on this Isle on the Irish sea. Just have to drag myself and do it!

Being in the countryside in the winter makes me feel the depth of the beauty described by the Victorian authors who used weather and nature as the emotional setting driving their stories.