The road into winter

I'm finding it hard to deal with the cold this year. I know people live in - 40, etc and I'm not grumbling, really. I think it's mainly the early morning starts (5.30) in order to get boy on right train each morning.
By the time it's dark, fire lit, shutters shut, I could quite happily snuggle into bed, but really, six o'clock - a bit pathetic.
Yesterday really was 100% leaf-pile hibernation temptation, today less so as the sun is shining brightly and the washing is steaming gently outside rather than on various strings hung around the house.
Summer is a distant memory, awakened by the sight of cushions in need of a wash in the sun shelter, a tangled mess of swimming goggles in the shed and the brown crumpled heads of roses still clinging to leafless stems.
Was it ever really 42 degrees? But then, I can remember standing next to the same roses looking at the heat haze in July thinking, 'could it ever have been - 4 degrees?'