I am posting this on a day when the windchill makes outside feel like minus 32 degrees...
Our fleecy-lined boots and thick coats are out from the back of the wardrobe and being put to good use, as our staple footwear and outerwear. In fact I have a feeling that may well be it for the others until March time - if it was anything like last winter, I went months before I could think about a choice of footwear!
Talking to people in the summer, I think I and T had begun to view last winter as not that bad: the extreme cold isn't that bad, the snow and ice covered ground isn't that bad, the cold won't put us off going outside... It's always the way. Looking back in our time in Sevilla I can't envisage the hot summer which rendered me housebound. Surely, 40-plus degrees can't be that ferocious? Sun and heat is for eating ice cream and wearing pretty summer clothes - there can't be a 'too hot' heat...?
We were looking forward to embracing this winter; images of snow shoeing, cross-country skiing, snow-shoeing, drinking steaming mugs of thick, rich hot chocolate...all the things we didn't do last winter...
One day into the cold snap however, and I think the novelty of the cold had worn off by the end of last winter!
All those added' extras', accompaniments which go hand in hand with the freezing temperatures and snow - and which we had conveniently forgotten - soon came flooding back in the first couple of days in the depths of it.
It's time to recall the tricks we learnt last year:
It's time to recall the tricks we learnt last year:
- Wrapping your scarf over most of your exposed face (still making sure you can breathe, of course) - I had forgotten how wrapping a scarf normally allows for your chin to go numb, and then when you try to speak, you can't pronounce the words... You don't want to raise the scarf and leave your neck not properly covered though - any gap in the scarf-wrapping procedure will soon be discovered.
- Gloves should now be worn in two pairs - (with this I mean wearing a pair of gloves under another pair). Maybe not for the hardcore, but for those like myself whose fingers can go numb from cold for about ten months of the year. I foolishly went for a two-hour walk with T at the weekend and only wore one pair...then spent an hour at home standing over the stove top hovering where the kettle had boiled trying to get the feeling back in them!
- The importance of layers - it is bitter outside, but inside, in cafes, shops, malls, the metro, it's so hot! Without layers, you slowly melt over your coffee.
- To allow extra time for getting anywhere. Walking takes longer when you slide a little backwards for every step you take, as well as your eyes being glued to the ground in front of you trying to pick paths which have been gritted, or are at least not a sheet of ice! here is no room for a quick march on the slippery layers of compacted snow and ice. Although the pavements are generally cleared, the area on them on which you can walk is narrowed, meaning there is not much opportunity to overtake people. So even if you are brave enough to get up some speed, you soon come to a crawl again. You have to pick your route carefully, and on the road crossings, trying not to step on the white painted lines as they tend to be more slippery than the plain tarmac. Deep pools of salt-melted icey sludge line the junctions also, so you have to navigate those too. And there I was thinking my walking pace had become quicker as the routes we re-tookover the summer knocked a good twenty minutes off our winter record! It's not just walking - when travelling by car, you have to allow an extra ten minutes for scraping the snow and ice off the car - a lot more if it's snowed inches and your car can barely be seen under the snow!
- Take tissues everywhere - your nose develops a leak, and trying to look at things in a shop or changing at the gym, well, it's just embarrassing as you sniff and sniff but then it eta too much...
There are other things only associated with winter too:
- You become static, so everything you touch - whether it be an item in a store, getting into the car, each other, Albie; everything gives you an electric shock.
- Allow an extra five minutes to get ready to go out. As you wrap up in extra layers, scarf, hat, gloves, extra socks, lace up boots, suddenly that idea of nipping out for a bag of carrots doesn't seem such a great idea.
- You use any excuse to put the oven on: "Those two courgettes I bought yesterday must be used - I better make a vegetable stew." "Ooh, that looks an interesting biscuit recipe, I'd better cook it right now." Once the hob or oven is successfully on you become mesmerized by the heat and stay there as long as you can feasibly get away with.
However, it does make you appreciate:
- Heated seats in cars - always a nice little extra, in this level of cold it is a luxury which is appreciated every. single. time.
- Hoods! I have found a new respect for my coat hood, with its faux fur trim. When I pull it up over my head it's like I'm in a sleeping back, blocking out the majority of the bitter wind, the cold, and the fur - which I always hated the look of - traps the snow and prevents a large percentage from blowing in your face. Long live the hood!
- Cups of tea taste much better than in the heat of the summer. They also take on a dual purpose: warming you inside, and becoming a great hand warmer.
- Hot chocolate and stodgy rich dishes are justified! I can now - just about - see why they invented Poutine (chips, gravy and cheese curds).
- Long dark evenings inside, with candles lit and, at the moment colourful Christmas lights, seem cosy and snug.
- It makes you do jobs in the house which you have been meaning to do all summer but never got around to as all energy was spent on time outside. Now, they are a great excuse not to go outside!
- Although the cold can also makes you a little crazy - I tend to do a little dance around the house to get warm after I have been sitting still writing; this is OK when I am on my own which I mostly am, but then I forget when T is at home, and on witnessing this, he looks very worried and a little bit scared...
But, it is what it is, and life has to continue - albeit in many layers.