Here the weather is more variable and there is a winter (although my friends from Russia or Canada might dispute this), with long periods of short days with grey skies and not seeing the sun for weeks on end. This affects me far more than the cold. After our little mini-summer of a week or two ago, yesterday's 4 º C, battleship grey skies and ice-cold rain seemed to make a difficult teaching day so much worse. Today just looking out the window made me feel much better about the day to come.
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