Opinion: No escape from the winter blues

Jon Snow from Game of Thrones has become synonymous with the saying 'winter is coming'. For Bay of Plenty Times columnist Tommy Wilson, winter has already come. Photo/file

Every year about this time when the cold days and dark nights of August come around I start making promises to myself that I am going to spend the whole of next summer outside chasing the sun.

And this year I mean it! August for me is a dark month, not just in terms of short days and long cold nights but it takes a toll on us all, especially as we get older and our resistance to being knocked down by one bug or another is affected.

August heralds in Hicane and other health hazards and we have no other choice but to inhale and pay the price, and each year I pray for less spray and more wisdom from our own who put profit before people. But each year I get the same reply as winter. Very cold and for the health of our whanau and whenua - very sad.

Trying to escape the winter blues is columnist Tommy Wilson. Photo/file

One of the good things about being bed-bound and riding out the sinus storm of the flu season is you get a lot of time to stop and think and listen to winter blues. It seems like the whole country is covered in a long white korowai of snow and the cabin fever of winter blues is playing a very loud tune.

For many, winter is the time for comfort, for warm kai and good korero around a family fire with friends and whanau.

It is time to be snuggled up in bed with a good book or someone who has read one. Wisdom comes with winter, so the wise scribes say, and for this beach boy there has been plenty of down time to be well read and wise while waiting for spring to come calling.

Here's a challenge. Try and talk to someone, anyone, without mentioning how cold it is. Almost impossible huh? Not even Donald Trump can compete with the cold when it comes to korero and if we thought Indian Summers were long, well this winter could well trump both Donald and the doubters who are banging on about who should hold on to the keys of the world for the next four years.

Saddled in there somewhere as a subject to throw us off winter blues is the Summer Olympics.

Some are already calling these games a failure and, although it is only early days, I can't help feeling it is going to take a lot more than a statue blessing them from above or a girl from Ipanema on the beach below, to help the land of "Hola" samba their way through this Olympic carnival.

I guess the signs have been there from the get go when Rio was awarded the honour of hosting the Olympics - the first time ever in South America in the history of the games.

It seems like the whole country is covered in a long white korowai of snow and the cabin fever of winter blues is playing a very loud tune.

Tommy Wilson

The cynic in me could not help noticing the synergy in the name of the soccer star (Kaka) to replace the legendary Pele as torch bearer (Kaka) at the opening ceremony - and the same name for what could well be remembered long after the flame has been doused in two weeks.

There has been a bad aroma of chaos around Rio 2016 that started stinking when Rio was first selected. Steadily but surely the aroma grew into a stench that we can almost smell back here and the chances of these games coming out smelling like roses are about the same as Valerie Adams winning the gold for gymnastics. But we soldier on and give thanks for small mercies and pockets of winter cheer when they come our way as they did over the weekend.

Firstly, with Beauden and his Hurricanes bros blowing the Lions back to Pretoria, and locally the match that many will talk about for generations to come, when the raging warriors of Papaka wrestled the title of Baywide Champions from an equally heroic Mounties side.

It was club rugby at its glorious best where winter and its blues had no place amongst the colourful crowd who came for a good game and got one of the greatest ever. If mana was the measure of this match, and I believe it was, then the spoils were equally shared.

Firstly, to Rangataua and my shining star - pocket rocket, next door neighbour - Teina Hika, but also to The Mount, who may have lost the match but held their heads high, none more so with their haka to honour Rangataua during the post-match celebrations. To both teams, you both did the game, the supporters and each other proud.

For now, we hang up our boots and hang on for summer. We hunker down in homes that not all have, to hibernate away from the winter blues in August.

- Tommy Wilson is a best-selling author and local writer.

* broblack@xtra.co.nz