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Sugar and Spice… These Winter Woes

Growing up, I used to love winter. The snuggling up under blankets, the copious amounts of hot chocolate, your breath a cloud of white fog on those extra chilly mornings… But the older I get, the more I realise that winter is just one long inconvenience.

Getting home well past sunset thanks to the time change and not having enough will-power nor enough f*cks to give to force me up from under the blankets I bury myself under the moment I get home, I’ve taken to having popcorn for dinner more times than I’d like to admit. I suppose it’s safe to say that winter has been showing me flames. Metaphorically, that is.

A rapidly depleting stock of tissues on my desk, a constantly growing pile of used tissues in the bin under it and the constant, err… delightful sounds of me blowing my nose every couple of minutes has become the order of the day at my little cubicle at work. This, of course, has earned me nicknames such as ‘Lord of the Snot’, ‘Die Snot Fabriek’ and the latest pseudo-witticism – “You – with the Snot”. I would usually have a comeback but I need to go blow my nose…

For most of the year, my skin is, despite its obvious shortage of melanin, quite great. It tans well and doesn’t need much to be… well, skin. Winter has, however, turned everything I thought I knew on its head and I find myself staring at a slightly sickly complexion that could land me a spot in the next ‘Twilight’ film. No amount of moisturiser seems to be able to quench my skin’s newly found thirst. If you’re looking for me, I’ll be sitting in the dark, sipping blood red wine and praying for the return of summer sunshine.

I’m convinced that every morning, right before my alarm is set to go off, goblins sneak into my room and enchant my bed to be the most comfortable thing I’ve ever felt. With a body that’s entirely unwilling – due to the cold – and somewhat unable – due to the mass of blankets draped over me, hauling myself out of bed these last couple of weeks has not been pretty. I am currently looking into working from home for the rest of winter and going into hibernation next year, right before the temperatures drop. Hold thumbs for me.

The only thing worse than getting a flu in the middle of winter? Getting a flu in the middle of winter that leaves you with a serious case of the sniffles, but not feeling bad enough to guiltlessly ditch work and watch ‘Keeping Up with the Kardashians’ all day. Despite having told everyone who would listen that this year I’d get my flu shots early, I didn’t. And I’ve been a miserable mess of sniffles and snot ever since.

I’m sure in a few months I’ll be complaining about the heat, but until then: Hurry back, summer. I miss you something awful.

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