Wednesday 13th February

Is it just me, or is it really getting colder and colder.  It has been going on for long enough now.  Surely.   And yet day after day we get up and are faced with another bleak and cold day.  And it isn’t really freezing – at least not here in London, there have been a few flakes of snow in the air but nothing settling, no real frost either, just so bloody cold.

Everyone feels the cold in different ways.  Some in their hands, their face, their ears even, and some right inside.  My Achilles heel is literally my feet; once they get cold I have had it.  I can’t get any part of me warm again.  I have spent a small fortune on trying to find the best socks to beat the winter chill.  All makes of thermal socks have been tried and rejected.  Even the ludicrous theory that thin socks will keep your feet warm – that was a real waste of time.

Maybe it is my age, I don’t remember feeling the cold so badly when I was younger.  But I groan inside each day as I look out on another cold day.  The tube which in summer is baking offers little comfort, as we all sit or stand huddled together like penguins in Antartica trying to gain a shred of warmth from our neighbours, usually to no avail – and then out onto the street again until we gain the safety of our offices.

In a few days time I will back in France and I keep watching the weather in Eymet; about five degrees warmer than here at the moment, and I cannot wait.  In the meantime I will just have to keep putting up with this bone-chilling cold.