You Know it's Winter when...

• getting dressed in the morning you check what the weather looks like, and decide not to wear shorts
• you have a coat in the car - just in case
• every time you go swimming you think 'if it gets any colder it'll be too cold to swim in an outdoor unheated pool'
• you have to find your jumpers in the evening
• you know where your heater is
• the shower temperature is above half-way

Yes it's just under a month to mid-winter solstice and it's cold. It's now often -2d during the day (just to clarify a d (or a degree on the dave scale) is equivalent to a C (or a degree centigrade), but with zero set at a sensible temperature. Therefore -2d=18C and -20d=0C. There are F's but I don't understand them, I could explain in K but some readers wouldn't understand that).

It's so cold I've even taken to wearing a coat to work, and not opening all the windows until about lunchtime.

Still, it could be worse, it could be a British Summer!

UPDATE:
It gets worse, some days after deciding not to wear shorts you really wish you had, and then you realise you haven't got your swimming kit with you so cannot even cool off in the pool :(

It's 3 weeks to midwinter and this is the view from my drive:

it's a hard life, but someone has to do it!