For all non-English speakers that must be quite a tricky title - in fact it reminds me of when I went to visit my dad in his retirement home and we both sat down to have some lunch there. 'Would you like some custard with your roast beef?' the young lady asked me. No, she didn't go on to offer me some mustard with the dessert - in a book it might have happened but not in a real life blog. Look - I'm off at a tangent before I've even begun.It's so cold; well I thought so until I read some blogs today that came from bloggers suffering at temperatures of -15.* Here it is registering just 2 degrees and I'm bloody freezing. The radiators are blasting out hot air, I'm dressed in clothes that should make me feel warm, I'm clutching a hot water bottle, drinking tea non-stop and yet I'm still cold.
I don't know how people who sleep rough cope in the winter. Where I used to work we had a guy that slept in the doorway of our building and whoever arrived first for work (believe it or not it was often me) would make him a hot drink and try and get him sorted and away before more people started arriving. He would sometimes be blue with the cold and I felt so sorry for him. Yet every big city has this problem and money is running too short for councils to designate more shelter for the homeless. Maybe as more and more middle-class types fall off the prosperity treadmill and end up in similar situations then something might be done but I think I'll stop being serious now because I'm too cold.
The thing is that in the summer I often think that I prefer the winter. I'm not someone who enjoys wearing just shorts and a vest - I suit clothes better -( or should that be better clothes) and never bare acres of flesh. I try to keep still for days during July and August, quite easy to do now that I don't work but travelling on the London tube used to be sheer hell. I think where I live suits the summer though -we've taken off quite a few of our doors which is probably why it has become so drafty. The thing is that doors get on my nerves. They don't enhance a room and I know they are practical but the way we have laid things out it is better without them.
We must have been mad.
*Except for Cynthia who is in Puerto Rico where it is currently 70 degrees.
