Finding Joy in the Grey Days

On ordinary winter days, changing our perspective and finding small reasons to look forward

Remembering the Beast from the East

I still remember the Beast from the East in 2018.

Ireland came to a standstill. Schools closed, roads disappeared beneath snowdrifts, pipes froze, and for a few extraordinary days, the world outside our windows looked almost unrecognisable.

We were fortunate to have electricity throughout it, and I remember how much we enjoyed being at home together. We played games, watched films, cooked comforting meals and kept looking out the windows to see how much more snow had fallen.

There was something quite magical about it.

Of course, I know it wasn’t magical for everyone. For plenty of people, those days brought real difficulties, isolation and worry. But in our little corner of the country, with everyone safe and warm, it felt like an unexpected pause in the middle of ordinary life.

I think part of what made it so memorable was how unusual it was.

Because most Irish winters are nothing like that.

Most of our winter days are grey.

Not beautiful, snowy, storybook grey. Just ordinary Irish grey. The kind that begins with rain, continues with rain and occasionally changes things up with a particularly enthusiastic bit of wind.

The garden is muddy. The washing takes forever to dry. The sky seems to sit just above the rooftops.

And somewhere around the middle of January, I usually find myself wondering whether we’ve had a proper bright day in weeks.

But I’ve been thinking lately about how much of our lives we spend waiting for better conditions.

Better weather. More energy. A free weekend. A brighter morning. Something exciting in the diary.

And how easy it is, particularly at this time of year, to let perfectly ordinary days pass us by while we’re waiting.

Not Every Day Has to Be Beautiful

I love a crisp winter morning.

Blue skies, frost on the grass, that lovely sharp air that makes you glad you’ve wrapped up properly.

But those days are not the whole of winter, especially here on the east coast of Ireland.

And I don’t think we do ourselves any favours by expecting every season to provide its most photogenic version of itself.

Some days are simply dull.

The light is flat, the weather is miserable and nothing particularly interesting happens.

I’ve come to believe that we don’t need to turn every one of those days into something magical.

Sometimes the greatest shift is simply to stop expecting them to be different.

A grey Tuesday is still a Tuesday. There are things to do, people to talk to, meals to make, places to go and moments worth noticing.

Life hasn’t been put on hold because the sun hasn’t appeared.

Go Outside Without Waiting for Perfect Weather

One of the things I’ve learned from living in Ireland is that if you wait for the ideal weather to go outside, you could be waiting quite a while.

And while I have absolutely no desire to stand in sideways rain for the sake of proving a point, I do find that getting outdoors often changes how I feel about a day.

Sometimes it’s a proper walk with Alfie.

Sometimes it’s just going out to check on the hens and ducks, wandering around the garden or noticing what’s happening in the hedgerows.

There’s usually something to see.

The bare branches of the trees. Moss growing thickly along a wall. The first tiny shoots pushing through the soil. A bird making an enormous fuss over something only another bird could possibly understand.

I think we’re sometimes so focused on what winter lacks that we forget to notice what’s actually there.

The countryside isn’t empty in January.

It’s just quieter, and much of what is happening requires us to look a little more closely.

And then, of course, there’s the particular pleasure of coming back indoors, taking off damp boots and feeling the warmth of the house.

That part is rather lovely too.

Give Yourself Something to Look Forward To

I don’t mean booking a holiday or organising a grand adventure, although those things can be wonderful.

I mean the smaller things.

A coffee with a friend. A trip to the library or bookshop. A Sunday lunch. An afternoon spent trying a new recipe. A visit somewhere local that you haven’t been in ages.

I think these little plans matter enormously during the winter.

They give shape to the weeks, especially when the days can begin to feel much the same.

And they remind us that enjoyment doesn’t have to wait until spring.

Sometimes I’ll realise I’ve been looking forward to something as simple as having a quiet hour to myself with a new book.

That counts.

In fact, I think it counts rather a lot.

Notice the Colour That Is Already There

When I look out the window on a wet January morning, the first thing I often see is the grey sky.

But once I’m outside, I notice that the landscape isn’t nearly as colourless as it seemed.

There are the deep greens of ivy and evergreen shrubs, the reddish-brown stems of bare hedges, the gold of winter grasses and the dark, rich earth after rain.

Even the puddles have their moments.

And then there are those little signs that the year is beginning to turn.

Snowdrops appearing in the garden. Buds swelling on branches. The evenings becoming almost imperceptibly brighter.

I don’t want to rush towards spring, but I do enjoy noticing its earliest hints.

There’s something reassuring about knowing that change is happening, even when we can’t quite see it yet.

Perhaps that’s one of the nicest things about paying attention to the seasons.

We begin to recognise that nothing stays exactly as it is.

Not even the grey days.

Keep Some Colour in Your Own Life

Of course, we can also bring a little colour into our days ourselves.

I love the sight of early spring flowers on a kitchen table. A jug of daffodils or tulips can brighten an entire room.

But colour doesn’t always have to mean flowers.

It might be wearing a favourite bright jumper, cooking a particularly colourful meal, choosing a cheerful tablecloth or getting out paints and making something simply because you feel like it.

I’m a great believer in doing little creative things without worrying too much about the result.

Not everything has to be useful or beautiful or worthy of sharing with anybody.

Sometimes the pleasure is simply in doing it.

And on a grey afternoon, that can be more than enough.

Make Room for Other People

I think this is something we can easily overlook when we talk about winter.

So much of the conversation centres on staying home, slowing down and making ourselves comfortable.

And I love all of those things.

But connection matters too.

A quick phone call. A cup of coffee with somebody you haven’t seen in a while. An invitation to come over for lunch. A conversation that makes you laugh when you weren’t particularly expecting to.

Winter can become quite insular if we’re not careful.

It’s easy to put things off until the weather improves or everyone is less busy.

But I’ve rarely regretted making the effort to see somebody, even on a thoroughly miserable afternoon.

Sometimes another person’s company is exactly what an ordinary day needs.

Let an Ordinary Day Be Enough

I think there’s a subtle pressure, particularly at the beginning of a new year, to make every day count in some measurable way.

To improve something. Achieve something. Establish a new habit. Make progress.

And while there’s nothing wrong with having plans, I don’t think every day needs to justify itself.

Some days we get a great deal done.

Other days we manage the essentials, have a conversation, make dinner and go to bed.

That is life too.

I don’t want to spend January feeling that I ought to be doing more simply because the calendar has turned to a new year.

Nor do I want to spend it waiting for brighter days before I allow myself to enjoy things.

There is room for ambition and rest, activity and quiet, exciting plans and thoroughly ordinary Tuesdays.

We need all of them.

When the Grey Feels Heavier

Of course, there are times when grey days feel like more than a passing annoyance.

The shorter daylight hours can affect our mood, and winter can be particularly difficult when we’re dealing with illness, grief, loneliness or other worries.

I don’t think a walk or a bunch of daffodils can solve those things.

And I wouldn’t want to suggest that finding joy is simply a matter of choosing a more positive attitude.

Sometimes what we need is rest. Sometimes it’s support, company or a conversation with someone we trust. And sometimes we need professional help.

There is no failure in finding a season difficult.

Perhaps the gentlest thing we can do is allow ourselves to acknowledge how we’re feeling without demanding that every day become cheerful.

We can look for small pleasures while still admitting that things are hard.

Both can be true.

Grey Is Not Empty

When I think back to those snowy days in 2018, I remember them so clearly because they were unusual.

But most of the memories that make up a life aren’t created during extraordinary weather or extraordinary events.

They’re made on ordinary days.

On school mornings and rainy afternoons. Around kitchen tables. During walks with the dog. Over meals that nobody thought to photograph.

They’re made when somebody says something funny, when we notice the first snowdrops, when a friend calls unexpectedly or when we finally sit down at the end of a long day.

I don’t think we need to pretend that January is our favourite month.

We don’t have to love the rain or find every gloomy afternoon charming.

But we can try not to wish the whole season away.

Because these are our days too.

And there is a lot of life to be lived between now and spring.

Chat soon,

Ciara x

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