Batten down the hatches

Press, 27 May 1981, Page 17

Batten down the hatches

By

JOAN CURRY

Some time between 1823 and 1896 an obscure poet named Coventry Patmore

said: “I, singularly moved to love the lovely that are not beloved, of all the seasons most love winter." It may be a little awkwardly put, and perhaps Coventry Patmore deserves to remain obscure, but I agree with his sentiments. I too, of all the seasons, most love winter.

There is an energy about winter that is missing from the rest of the year. Winter fights back, and sometimes wins. A sense of impending siege is present, with a desire to clear the decks and batten down the hatches. All through the summer the garden hose has been draped over the trellis in lazy, utilitarian loops, ready for use. Now it has been neatly coiled and put away. The grass has mercifully stopped growing, and the mower has been cleaned and ■oiled and tucked into a dark corner of the garage. The fiiewood, ordered two months ago, should arrive any day now they say. Summer clothes have been stored, and the corduroy and woollies shaken out. .We have played out the six monthly domestic tusslewhich involves him throwing out practically every stitch we own and me snatching most of it back from the ragbag. The big yellow goodwill box at the corner of the street has accepted a rubbish bag full of clothing that I couldn’t retrieve in time. The outstanding characteristic of winter is contrast.

It is exquisite to feel warm when you have been cold. It is luxury to be dry after having been soaked. The prospect of home is especially comforting if you are slogging through a blizzard to get there. Winter is frost and snow and wind and rain outside, seen from the warmth and light inside. Winter is a sensational day after a week of rain. No such contrasts exist in summer. It is simply warmer or cooler, drier or damper, and it doesn’t matter much either way. Clothes become much more important in winter. We. can wear all sorts of different outfits changing our personalities at the same time. We can wear slacks and jeans and long dresses and skirts ,and sweaters and coats and hats. We can drift about in sweepingly long skirts and ' behave like duchesses, or we can wear jeans and a fisherman's jersey and slouch. In summer we wear only enough to maintain the decencies, and the choice is minimal. Winter means being able to watch old films on television in the afternoons without feeling guilty. This is scandalous in summer, but quite proper in winter. It is a habit we should indulge while ,we can because sooner or later the films being made now will become the old films on our home screens. And that won’t be the same thing at all. Any trace of guilt at lolling in front of the television set can be dispelled by doing something useful like knitting or brushing the cat. In my case, an ugly rumour persists that I invented fibre fatigue, not to mention, matting, felting, and shrinking, so knitting is out. Winter is undoubtedly a time for drawing things in around us; the curtains to shut out the darkness, the duvet up around the ears. The nights are for warm, deep sleep in icy bedrooms, with single-minded cats determined on sharing the amenities. There is hot, thick soup and fresh, home-made bread; steamed puddings; baked ap-

pies. There is no more Bottling to do. In winter there-is rain, so there are also umbrellas, wielded by people shorter than we are so that the ends of the spokes rake our faces. The rain fills up the rivers and lakes and makes electricity. It also tends to settle around the place about once a year making it difficult to get about. I heard about a woman once who donned gumboots in midst of a flood, picked up her two cats, one under each arm, and sloshed across her waterlogged garden to the only piece of dry land in sight. She put the cats down, glowing with her good deed, and started back to the house with the water lapping near the top of her boots. She was overtaken by both cats, looking ferociously ungrateful, dog-paddling straight as bullets for the back door. In winter there are no transistor radios because they have all been taken indoors. The backyard pools are empty, the trampolines have stopped twanging, and the motor mowers are silent. Winter is quartering the front garden for the morning paper in bare feet because you think, optimistically, that you will be able to slip outside and back again in a trice.' We have a ngaio tree which has a prodigious appetite for newspapers. One year, when the ngaio was still only a baby, our paper for November 30 was nowhere to be found. I eventually complained to the newspaper’s circulation department that it had not been delivered. Another copy was sent out by special messenger. On about February 16 the ngaio disgorged the missing issue, brown and crisp. From then on my conscience demanded that I paw through its dripping foliage every morning until we got a new agent who manages to flip it onto the lawn every time. Now I can slip out for the paper in bare feet and be back in bed before my feet get cold. As I said, it’s the contrasts that make winter so very jolly.