When the Winter hits you!

This has been the coldest week of the year, here in Johannesburg, with temperatures reaching minus 5 degrees!!!!! I think all the tourists must be in complete shock! I have been fortunate enough to work from home but even that doesn't warm things up. But it isn't so much the cold that bothers me....but more so the memories of the cold days I left behind in Canada..that gives me the real chills.

I managed to survive 6 winters in Canada and to tell you the truth each winter was worse than the previous one. I dreaded the walks to school, the warming up of your cars before you could take off; the scraping off of the ice and snow from your car. In fact having a car in winter was worse than walking. At least with walking you can just warm up instantly coz you walk so fast......If you are driving, you nearly freeze to death coz after scraping the snow off you sit in the car and wait for it to warm up. ...this is pure suicide for an African.

I was warned about the "winter depressions" which tend to happen to just about anyone. But I thought I was too positive about life to ever get into a depression. I was so wrong it did happen...an unexplainable dullness would come over me during those cold winter months. I would not feel motivated to do anything but just stay away from the cold. It was a cold lonely feeling that chilled you to your bones. I would also get so homesick just thinking about the African Sun, the dust, the sweat.....I would miss it all. Listening to that song " I want to go home" by Michael B. always takes me back to the cold winters of Canada. I would sing with a sad sorrowful voice.....I wanna go hoooooo hoo hoo home....with tears rolling down my face. I was pretty pathetic in Winter.

Now after feeling such cold depressing weather like Canada I am really struggling to fight the cold here in Johannesburg. I am home right now so I can't blame it on the homesickness...and I am definitely not lonely. As I write this I cannot feel my feet and my finger tips are blue. I am wearing jeans boots, hoody, thick panties warm under shirt and a warm cuddly night gown over everything. The heater is under my desk and I am boiling the kettle just to keep the air moist (the steam in the bottom right of the pictures …..is the boiling kettle). IT IS NOON>>> and it is still COLD. As much as I was depressed during the Canadian winters, I am realising that I had a lot more things to be thankful for.......

For starters Central Heating!!!! Everything was designed for those cold days. No matter how long I keep my heater on here...the room doesn't even get to half as warm as the homes in Canada. Plus the heater dries me up till I feel like a prune face. You know when it is so cold that you are even afraid to go to the toilet ....you would rather hold it in till you have no choice but to get up....thus risking yourself having a bladder infection. THAT IS COLD. I am even scared to get into the showers because taking off my clothes makes me feel as if my nipples are going to fall right off……THAT IS COLD.

But on a more positive note. The thing I love most about the Johannesburg winter is cuddling with my husband :). We sleep holding each other as if letting go would mean Death in the COLD. Spooning is a under estimate of how close we are...more like moulding or roping because our legs are twisted into each other. We are like our own personal heaters....at least I know if I dared to go pee in the middle of the night....my touchable heater would be waiting for me!

So to wrap this blog up. I would rather be a nippleless, bladder infected, prune faced wife than a central heated, depressed, homesick, student living in the snow. That’s the winter talk for you :).