Wednesday, January 18, 2006 | 3:49 AM

Remember how it felt like when there is rain pouring down at night, chilling you to the very end of your toes when you crawl under the blankets for bed?

Christmas' rainy season overran into 2006. But there is this really interesting difference in mood I felt between December and January.

In December hols, when you still have the luxury of whiling your time away, it seems like one of the greatest luxury to just snuggle under the bedsheets when you first wake up. Enjoying the toasty warm feeling under the bedsheets, listening to the musical sound of raindrops splattering against the window. Then when you finally drag yourself out of bed, the first contact your feet have with the chilling tiles of the floor sent shivers up your spine. Breakfast consists of warm coffee, and the mental devouring of the news. Or maybe the wolfing down of the beauty sights and sound the dewy morning offers, right before day breaks, against the curtain of rain right outside the window, with grey clouds as far as one's eye can see.

It was a picture of contented solitaire.

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