The Long Cold Winter

**okmqaz42** · 10-06-2011, 05:09 PM

Winter arrived here this evening, it got very cold very quickly. The heating is on, the the rain is lashing against the windows.
The worst thing about winter in Ireland is it starts to affect my life in October and this goes on until at least May. Most people see Ireland as a temperate maritime climate and are happy that we do not have extremes of weather, it is never too hot and rarely too cold and it is easy to dress appropriately, eat well and stay comfortable regardless of the which of the two seasons it is. This does not seem to apply to my beautiful wife because Lorraine has managed to very quickly revert to her mantra of repeating every 15 seconds how cold it is and that she is freezing. I will continue to enjoy this statement from now until it switches to “i’m too hot” in June.

It is going to be a very long winter.

I have decided to fight the winter blues this year by revisiting, photographically, some of the warmest days I have enjoyed in the last 12 months. Today's effort is a photo of the Santa Maria del Carmine on the banks of the Arno in the wonderful city of Florence. This is where you will find Masaccio’s fresco The Tribute Money.