The Winter Blahs

The Winter Solstice was last night, and our days are only about 8 hours long again. The light quality isn't very good either cos the sun never gets very high in the sky.

I just heard on the radio yesterday that up to 20% of Canadians get a mild form of depression associated with the short days and, presumably, not getting enough sun. The "Winter Blahs" is what they call it. A few percent (2 or 3) get a more severe version called Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) which is like wintertime depression.

It's not surpising to find it's an issue for potentially everyone in the population. I've heard several people talk about just having to go outside and do something to avoid going insane - and that's why a lot of Canadians like to go skating. In Montreal, you can even commute to work by skating along the canals - that would be cool.

I've been trying to go for walks around the block at lunchtime at work - and I'm still managing to do it even in late December because there is no snow around at the moment. We got a major dump about a month ago but there's been nothing much since. (Global warming again?) I'm going for the occasional swim at the McMaster U swimming pool when I'm in-between various bouts of cold and flu. Rachel walks to and from work every other day or so, and we've managed to find a skating rink once.

A very Merry Christmas to you all who are still reading. We've been doing this blog for a year now to keep everyone posted on our settling down in Canada, and we've done that. (Though it may well be as soon as a year before we're packing up to leave again...) We'll keep putting things up here from time to time, but I suspect we'll just have less to say unless we go travelling somewhere and take photos. Anyway, thanks for tuning in, and come visit us some time!
Cheers
B