I'm Terrified of the Impending Winter

...but this is what I'm doing about it

How to Build a Life is a newsletter for people bang in the thick of life’s mess and mayhem, who are still trying to find the magic. It’s written by me, Laura Jane Williams, author of 12 (!) books. I’m almost 40, a solo parent by choice, decorate my house like a tart’s boudoir, and lift very heavy weights. Those four things are my entire personality.

My latest rom-com is Enemies to Lovers, and I am the author of teen series Taylor Blake is a Legend too.

It takes genuine planning and preparation to keep ourselves nourished, hydrated, moving and connected. Without us being intentional and proactive, winter can be seriously depleting, weighing heavily on us. So we know it hurts, but how can we protect ourselves?

Suzy Reading, from Self-Care for Winter

I have a working theory that I’m panicking desperately feeling somewhat unprepared for the descent into darker mornings and colder weather because we moved house, so I’ve never known those conditions in this particular environment before.

Every house has its own idiosyncrasies: the way the boiler works, the nature of its window condensation, even just having a different layout and so different systems for where pajamas live, where the hot water bottles are kept, the way food is stored. We moved in spring, so the past six months we’ve been mostly downstairs where my office is, a downstairs loo, and an open kitchen/diner with a couple of armchairs by the French doors, which have often been open for the sun that hits the garden in the afternoons.

I can see how the downstairs of our home works for summer, with doors open and a constant flow of children and bikes and games being taken from the back garden to the front. And it feels almost finished! But then, I was fresher to the undertaking back in April and May and June, full of the enthusiasm of being a new home-owner, fuelled by months (years!) of thinking and plotting and mentally designing it all. I existed on midnight bedtimes for weeks because it was so important to me to finish unpacking a box or arranging a shelf or painting a door (I am excellent at painting doors).

I was also eager to execute everything - decorate the whole damned place - in, say, three to four months, so we were all sorted and I lived in my Pinterest dream by the year’s end.

What an idiot.

Who can decorate a house in a single business quarter?

Actually, maybe decorating a house in a single business quarter is possible. But definitely not making a home.

So. I have a 55% decorated home, which isn’t bad, of course. Except for the fact that it’s driving me crazy.

Beyond the ground level, my kid’s playroom is decorated pretty beautifully on the first floor. I did that early on, so he had a space that truly felt like his and also, being just the two of us we don’t need that third bedroom so it was exciting to have a room only for toys. No more standing on lego pieces to get to bed!! Otherwise, the rest of the house is untouched: two “builder’s white” bedrooms (mine doesn’t even have wardrobes or lampshades), a bleak family bathroom with those massive tiles in a colour that isn’t grey but also isn’t brown??? what am i supposed to do with those???? and a TV room we haven’t spent significant time in because we’ve been downstairs, enjoying summer. I can get to that when winter comes, I told myself, pulling the door to and looking for the money and time tree.

Well. Winter? She’s on her way. Autumn told me so.