A Winter's Tale

In these dark days of winter one has to do what one can to keep warm. When the icy chill permeates to your bones it can take a long time to recover. Having moved into a reasonably cold house just in time to experience the long winter nights, I have been reminded of when I lived in a stone-walled cottage in Cornwall which was generally colder inside than out. People actually used to put coats on when entering the building. It had no central heating and the log fire was eventually condemned as unsafe for use. Ice would occasionally form on the insides of the windows. Anyone who has found themselves in similar conditions will likely have shared some of the following experiences:

1. You heat the room that you are spending most of your time in, just by being in there, wrapping yourself in blankets, eating there etc. But you probably don't sleep there, so when it comes to going to bed you have to start the process all over again.

2. Electric blankets, hot water bottles and/or fan heaters are essential.

3. When you go to bed, the sheets are cold, so you have to warm them up with a few minutes of 'cycling' - a process where you lie on your side, rotating all of your limbs in an attempt to generate enough friction between you and the sheets to cause warmth.

4. When you wake up, you feel warm and snug, but by moving a mere centimetre in any direction you expose yourself to extreme cold, and have to lie rigid inside your body's outline until you muster the strength to get up.

5. When you do get up you have to run to the bathroom and jump into a hot shower to give you temporary relief.

6. This is fact makes it far worse when you get out of the shower, as you are now cold and wet, and can't put clothes on until you are dry. This process happens in front of the fan heater.

7. Your clothes are also cold so you either take them to bed with you to warm them through the night, or you hold them in front of the fan heater to heat them up. In some cases, hot air from the heater can be directed through the garment to ensure that it is warm on the inside when put on.

I recounted one or two of these instances to some friends, and there was a completely different response from my British friends, who understood exactly what I was on about, and my foreign friends, who presumably have only experienced mild European winters. Or perhaps they have sensibly lived in warm houses with central heating and effective boilers.

I suspect in summer I will complain about it being too hot.