Longest Wait for the Shortest Day, Bags of Fashion Sense & Looks Like Rain Dear

Taken from Lynne’s weekly column ‘Green Scene’ for the Western Mail
21^st December 2019

 Longest Wait for the Shortest Day

Hooray! It’s the shortest day.  Well technically it is tomorrow (Sunday) as the winter solstice this year is at 04.19.  Although many celebrate solstice as a whole day, it is actually a specific time when the sun will be directly overhead of the Tropic of Capricorn in the Southern Hemisphere and the North Pole will be tilted furthest away from the sun.

The days will start to draw out, albeit slowly.  From the middle of next month we will get a very-welcomed extra 2 minutes of daylight each day until June.  It doesn’t sound much, does it, but we all know what a difference it makes.

Dad always used to say if we could keep working (outdoors) up until Christmas, we would have broken the back of the winter.  I’m not sure that’s right but I always give a sigh of relief in having ‘got this far’ through the cold, wet, dark days.  Like a local farmer says, “The trouble is in Wales, we get 6 months of winter and 5 months of bad weather.”

Each winter for the last 10 years I have vehemently stated that I am going to get an indoor job for the winter, and each year I have continued to work outdoors under layers of thermals, fleeces and waterproofs of various effectiveness.  After 35 years of gardening, the main topic in work at this time of year is still ‘appropriate clothing’.  It has to be waterproof, windproof and not succumb to brambles and other gardening hazards.  You also have to be able to move freely in it. Wet weather clothing for walking dogs, for example, is a lot easier to find than for gardening as you are upright (or should be), for the entire time you are out in the elements.  Once you start kneeling, stretching, hedge cutting and digging, the rain goes up your sleeve, your thermals come ‘untucked’ and snug coats restrict movement. Oh the joys …

Perhaps the answer is a red and white suit.  Let’s face it, Santa Claus is out in all weathers at this time of year and seems to stay warm and dry …

Bags of Fashion Sense

I am always impressed by a local ‘outdoorsey’ chap, who wears a black bin liner over his traditional outdoor clothes, just cutting a hole for his head and one for each arm. He swears that it is the most wind and waterproof solution, especially on a Quad bike,  – and cheap to replace!

I haven’t had the courage to turn up in a client’s garden in a bin bag yet, but I do wear plastic bags inside my boots on the coldest days.  They are a great way to keep your feet warm and dry (over socks I hasten to add).  You do get clients raising an eyebrow when you take your boots off to nip into their house to use the loo but imagine if I had to take a bin bag off as well!

To quote the wonderful Billy Connolly, (who in turn is misquoting Alfred Wainwright), “I hate all those weathermen who tell you that rain is bad weather. There’s no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothing, so get yourself a sexy raincoat and live a little.”

Mind you Billy does live in Florida now!

Another friend who loathes the winter, claims that ‘every winter’ is the winter of her discontent.

Whatever the weather, and however you dress for it, have a wonderfully warm and cheerful Christmas.

Looks Like Rain Dear

At this time of year I am always ridiculously tempted to add a couple of reindeer to my ever-growing menagerie.  It’s obviously a seasonal whim, although the rest of the year is similarly spent resisting rescuing llamas, miniature donkeys, goats and all sorts of other four-legged beauties.

During a trip to Egypt I nearly bought a small camel when I discovered that I could put it on my Visa card.  I was already planning the camel treks up to Pen y Fan and various other Welsh mountains.  Needless to say I was, and have been, dissuaded – so far.

One of the things that put me off was the fact that camel’s feet can rot in very wet weather, so obviously not designed for Welsh winters.  In clever contrast, reindeer hooves actually expand in summer when the ground is soft and shrink in winter when the ground is hard.  Sounds a bit like my own feet.

Reindeer knees also make a clicking noise in order for them to be able to stay together in a blizzard – so do my knees!  Perhaps I am part reindeer. Their noses are also specially designed to warm the cold air before it enters their lungs – hmmm , I haven’t evolved that far but it sounds a useful thing to be able to do when working outside in a Welsh winter.