Winter is coming and the beauty of autumn – red and gold spreading across the neighbourhood trees; low-hanging mist; a morning glitter of frost – has an ominous quality this year. I don’t need to set out why we are all facing the next few months with real apprehension: almost every headline is doing that for me. The grim bonus is meteorologists predicting that La Niña may mean a colder-than-usual early winter.
But even at the best of times, I don’t think we as a nation deal with winter brilliantly. It’s something to endure or escape rather than appreciate or even enjoy. I personally fixate on Christmas, a frenetic emotional maelstrom – more powerful even than the John Lewis advert – of family, financial anxiety and festive frankenfoods. Then I lurch into some absurdly puritanical “new year, new you” regime for four minutes before giving up and spending months in custard-fuelled, snotty, grey lethargy. But does it have to be this way? I talked to experts to find out how eating, dressing, moving and generally living a bit differently might help me embrace, and even enjoy, winter.
