A friend of mine once joked that winter is so miserable, we collectively repress how bleak it is every year. Then, when the mercury drops, we’re somehow shocked that the sun is setting at 4pm, our monthly budgets are desperately contorting themselves around Christmas obligations, and we’re spending 20-30 minutes every weekday morning in silent negotiations with every instinct inside us that’s demanding we stay cocooned up in bed as the working day approaches.
I’m one of those ungrateful types who says silly things like “I can’t wait for winter, I love to layer!” by late August, which is testament to this annual amnesia. Sure enough, when winter comes around, I’m obsessively looking for any remnant of spring and summer to warm my spirit as I wait for the clocks to go forward again.
Sunday is my day to fuel up on enough cosiness to see me through five days of early starts and pitch-black evenings, so all food, entertainment and activities must be warming and mellow. Cooking shakshuka for breakfast means I can let the stove’s heat wash over me (an alternative to using even more energy on central heating) as I impatiently watch my red sweet peppers soften in the wok, waiting for the perfect moment to add first the passata (I’m fussy about tomato chunks) and then the eggs. I eat hurriedly, using hunks of toasted sourdough bread as cutlery, racing to get the warmth in me before heading out into the chilly air.
I don’t go far, as I’m lucky to live over the road from the epicentre of cosiness, Columbia Road flower market. The trees that line my street have been stripped bare by winter, so the market’s weekly bloom feels like walking back into May and June, even if I am balled up in a fleece and thick jogging bottoms. Strolling down the alleys that lead from the main road to the market, the sound of buskers singing blues music creeps up on me, accompanied by clinking pint glasses and pub chatter. To my right, windows framing candlelit cafe tables draw me in, leading my eyes to racks of 1970s tableware, costume jewellery and plant pots that spill out from a higgledy-piggledy shop and on to the wonky paving slabs.
After I finally accept there isn’t a place in my house for a crystal glass decanter – a decision I re-examine every time I pass this shop – I join the crowded flow of bodies heading to the flowers. Towering bamboo overshadows us for a brief moment, giving way to a flurry of colour that feels psychedelically incongruous in the grey, dead January chill. I walk through, watching out for bewildered jack russells and small children, to soak up the sea of bottle-green house plants and flamboyant bromeliads, inevitable roses and hundreds more I can’t name – some that look like hummingbirds, some that look like pineapples (but aren’t), fussy ones that I’d likely kill in a week, and hardy types I could hopefully neglect without guilt. Then I loop back, looking for something to take home.
My choice is slightly limited as I usually go towards the end of trading, when the lifestyle influencers have stopped taking photos and the sellers, eager to avoid lugging home too many spare cheese plants, offer discounts. By this point you can get a couple of really great bunches of flowers for a fiver, so I try to play florist and work out which colours and shapes are going to go together. Now it’s been winter for a good few months, I’m drawn to flowers that make me feel like I have the sun on my face – pretty little purple flowers that you’d see in a British park in summer, and sweet, warm orange petals that conjure up the taste of Soleros.
While the flower market is full of life and colour, it is still winter, and I’m still cold. I timed my central heating to come on 20 minutes before I get in, so warm air greets me as I push the front door open with my bum, to avoid crushing my bouquets. I place the flowers on the kitchen side, and begin cutting the stems with inadequate scissors, the mixture of hard work and warm radiators bringing feeling back to my cold fingers. I make a feeble arrangement and stick them in a vase that I use because it belonged to my nan, despite its irritating tendency to tip over. They’ll live by the window, which looks out on marketgoers clutching their huge, leafy houseplants and marching home in single file like leafcutter ants in scarves and coats.
Coffee made, slippers on and the house toasty, I squish myself into a corner of the sofa and get under a blanket that’s been warming on my radiator. As I lazily watch Netflix (or binge Beyoncé live performance videos on YouTube if I’m home alone or with sympathetic friends), I look up at my new bunch of flowers poking out from behind my TV. Their colours distract me from the grey skies and dull brick walls in the window behind them. I’m reminded that winter is temporary, the warm will return, and it will be so intoxicating I’ll say nonsense like “I can’t wait for winter, I love to layer!” by August again.
To stay snug and cosy, download the Meerkat app and set up EnergyCheck – you’ll never have to spend time searching for better energy deals again. Customers of Compare the Market who purchase a qualifying product can also use the app to get two-for-one at restaurants and cinemas for a whole year
