Seasons

For those of you who also read my e-mail journal, much of what I have have to say here you may have read before.

For the rest of you, what I'd like to muse about today is winter, snow and ice, and the fact that really, when you think about it, the world has only two seasons - winter and summer, which both seem to last and last and then suddenly switch places. We think of the switch as spring and autumn, but really, they last a fraction of the time that either the heat or the cold is getting you down.

I used to think, and proclaim, myself a winter person. I prefered cold to heat, but I now realise what I liked was the temperate, mild season we call winter in Africa. The season when a sweater and some jeans and heavy socks would see you through the day, and at night you could burrow under a duvet and some blankets to construct a cosy nest warmed by your body heat, and if you are lucky enough to have one, your partner's.

Now that I've had three Korean winters below my belt, and particularly this last and still present one, I am no longer so sure of my love of winter. Especially when it contains the amount of snow that this one did. It's not that I object to snow - it is very pretty, it serves the purpose of watering the ground for summer - I object to the fact that walking becomes a problem.

When you are young, slipping on the snow is fun and, since you are closer to the ground with elastic bones, not as dangerous as when you are fifty plus and conscious of all the past broken bones, and hence averse to breaking any more.

Also, as the snow is trodden into ice, or melts and freezes into it, it becomes even more of a problem.

Luckily the present apartment does not present me with quite the problem of overcoming the cold that the last one did, but leaving the cosiness of heated floors for the outdoors is always daunting.

So I have to amend my preference - a temperate, mild 22 degrees Celsius all year round, please!