Out of darkness cometh light
As winter’s grip loosens, I've come to recognise it as a time of renewal and exploration.
I used to be afraid of the dark, of how I’d get through the short days and long nights of winter. How could I endure this miserable time of year? How could I accept my favourite walking and cycling routes being reduced to impassable bog? The answer, it turned out, was not to mourn the loss of summer but to welcome winter and explore all that it has to offer.
After all, hot chocolate is at its best when it also warms the drinker's stiff-frozen fingers. Long evenings free of summer activities are a gift of time to spend letting unread stacks of books carry my mind this way and that. And while winter may drive me away from the muddiest paths and trails, it also encourages me to investigate places I overlook in summer.
This winter, one of those places was Wolverhampton – in the empty days of Twixtmas. The trip was an excuse to catch the tram, and stretch our legs in a city we’d never visited. The day may have been thick with cloud, but we’d be broadening our horizons.