Have you ever noticed how people walk in winter? They’re huddled, it’s like they’re wrapped around themselves. Coats wrapped round, hats held on tight. Bent over forward, making themselves smaller. Less to get cold and wet, maybe. And no one’s out. The streets look deserted. Maybe everyone’s inside somewhere having fun, but I don’t think so. I think they’ve wrapped up, gone to bed early, hiding under a duvet. 

In the summer, it’s different. When we go out, we stand up, look out. We smile and wave at each other as we pass by. People are sitting outside pubs. It’s alive. 

My Fine Wife always berates me when I tell her I’d be happy if I never saw another winter. “You’ve got to have the dark to appreciate the light, you’ve got to have the winter because it’s part of the cycle of the year. You can’t have the warm if you don’t have the cold”. Pah. Cold, schmold. OK, I’ve got some nice heavy wool suits and a rather fine long, fur coat, but that aside… Winter? As Edwin Starr once said, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing. 

What’s so terrible about the idea of retiring to a small Greek island? A little taverna on the beach in a horseshoe bay? “Calamari? Of course. And would you like some Retsina with that?” 

No really, I’d be happy if I never saw another winter. Don’t like it. Don’t like the dark. Don’t like the cold. I don’t understand why the clocks go back or forward or whatever it is in the autumn so it gets darker (and therefore colder too) earlier. I used to be told “Ah, it’s the farmers”. I don’t know any farmers. I’m sure they’re lovely people but they’ve had their turn. Maybe now it’s my turn. Children will ask their parents why it is the clocks haven’t gone back or forward or whatever, they’ll ask why it’s still light and warm. “Ah, it’s the magazine editors…”

Anyway. That’s passed. The clocks have done the other thing they do and now it’s brighter later. I don’t have to wake the puppies up at 3pm to take them for a walk. Now I wake them at 5pm to take them out, It makes all the difference, The sky’s out. In a few weeks we’ll have that lovely, mad month when it’s the Festival, the Fringe, The Great Escape… probably a few other things I’ll remember later. It’s like a reward for all that farmer-inspired damp. 

Meanwhile back on dry land, the online petition to save Seven Cellars and Latina from the evil clutches of The Co-op Group stands at a fantastic 5,846. And by the time Dan Tansley has done his printing magic and this becomes a magazine, who knows what it’ll be. Funny how in the old days when the likes of Tesco were thought of as the Devil, the Co-op was seen as kind and benign. A co-operative. It sounded kinda cuddly. Well, there’s that idea gone. Anyway, let’s keep up the pressure. You never know.

Things are constantly changing round here. The Mighty Whistler, it’s like a shark. Always moving forward. Never staying still. We’ve got – at possibly  huge expense – a new sports editor who this month is writing about the revolution in Whitehawk. And there’s another new development bubbling away in Whistler Towers. We’re going to start a listings section. What’s on and where to go. It would be lovely to have an old school listings section. It’ll mainly be in the website so we can regularly update it. It’ll take a bit of organising but I think it could be a thing to do.