Monday 5 January 2009

Dear Big Freeze

Dear Big Freeze,

Do you think you could possibly go away now please? I think our time together must come to an end. I mean, you were pretty fun to begin with. Everything looking beautifully frosty in the mornings, ponds frozen solid even in Central London, a chance to wear the thick winter jerseys that have been languishing in my wardrobe the past two mild winters. Even the alpaca hat that I bought for the Inca Trail has had an outing - and the Doctor (someone who will not even put on a hat while skiing) has been glimpsed wearing gloves on several occasions....

But now I'm getting fed up. Let me list the reasons why.

1. My draughty Victorian house cannot cope with you. Even something as innocuous as a fast food leaflet stuck in the letterbox seems to let in a powerful stream of freezing air. Unless we have the gas fire on, cold comes down the chimney and turns our living room into an igloo. And the radiators on the upper floor seem to have gone on strike.

2. The Littleboys, whom I previously thought were impervious to cold, are feeling it. Every walk we now go on turns into a neverending saga of trying to replace gloves and hats that they have either removed or dropped. Eventually, I get fed up and put the gloves away. The walk then ends in tears, with one of the boys screaming that they are cold.

3. My skin and lips are permanently chapped and even layers of night cream and Vaseline do not appear to be doing any good. I may have to resort to goose fat.

4. The credit crunch having killed off my office job before Christmas, I am now going to be working from home three days a week, so will need to crank up the heating all day, resulting in sky-high bills, or my fingers will freeze at the keyboard.

5. My plan to eat healthily for the whole of January seems much less tempting in the freezing cold, when steaming mugs of hot chocolate and plates piled high with pasta are so appealing. And going for a run around the Common? Well, the horses aren't even running at racetracks, so I've decided that the going is just too tough.

6. If you actually produced snow that settled, it would be quite pretty. But you don't. You just snow wetly and ensure that we can't go to the playground because it's too mucky.

So could you just go back to Siberia, the Arctic, or wherever it was you came from, please. I know we'll be seeing much more of you next year in New York, but I think I can wait until then.

Yours,

a shivering

Nappy Valley Girl

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hear you Nappy Valley!
I live in a brand new house and it's still bloody cold!
We are currently sat in the lounge together (schools don't go back until tomorrow) with a blanket over our knees like a bunch of old folks!
Watching the Christmas Doctor Who though so that's warming us up!

Anonymous said...

I know! The Serpentine was totally frozen on Saturday morning!

but just think, shivering uses up loads fo calories, and surely the muscular contractions must assist in toning us up?

Gone Back South said...

Oh dear poor cold you. It's got to get warmer soon, surely. In our old house the heating would have been on full blast and it never really got that warm in some of the rooms. The house we're renting now is new, so it's pretty heat-efficient and toasty.

Potty Mummy said...

GBS is just showing off... As a person living in an old London building we're pretty chilly too - the heating has been on 24/7 since New Year and it still doesn't go above 18 degC... And the forecast for tomorrow is 0 degC ALL DAY. Is the weather on a credit-crunch go-slow, do you think?

Tim Atkinson said...

Absolutely, PM. And when it gets really, really cold the Russians are going to turn the gas tap off. Then we'll be for it!

Try 'Hard Frost' by Andrew Young, NVG. It doesn't help wamr you up, but it's nice in a nice, shivery sort of way. And it reminds you that - however cold it gets - the sun will always win!

nappy valley girl said...

Tara - nothing like a bit of David Tennant to warm the cockles, eh?

Mud - I'd have liked to see the Serptentine frozen. You are clearly a glass half full sort of person!

GBS - from the looks of the forecast, it's not warming up any time soon....

PM - yes, I think the weather must be aping the economic conditions....

Dottorel - I think the Russians are just sending us their weather instead. I will try Hard Frost - thank you.

A Confused Take That Fan said...

I think the big freeze got your letter. It snowed this morning. Did you have any?

Expat mum said...

Well, you'd all be useless in Chicago. I think it may actually be warmer over here at the moment, but our winter goes on till at least mid-April, by which time we're all ready to throw out the ski jacket and race around in teeny, hot weather clothes.

Iota said...

"Next year in New York..." How did it feel typing that?

Nota Bene said...

Much sympathy.

Trust me, it can't be as bad as arriving home after two weeks away, to discover a window open upstairs, and a heating system that according to British Gas has been obsolete for a qaurter of a century. And then going into the office which took until 3 o'clock this afternoon to rise above freezing point. brrr

But the snow did look lovely this morning

Bush Mummy said...

The dilemma of leaving the heating on all night.. it's an interesting one.. hmmm.

The kids wake up when it's on because they are too hot, parched and desiccated and in desperate need of water.. then they wet the bed.

The kids wake up when it's off because they've chucked off their duvets and any part of them not covered in pj's is freezing.

Either way - Mummy and Daddy get the 4.30am wake up call. Nice.

Bring on the summer I say..

BM x

PS I know some lovely mummies in NYC if you need some friends.

nappy valley girl said...

CTTF - it did snow, but nothing settled. This is the price you pay for living in London....

Expat Mum - I know I'd be useless there. I've only been there once very briefly, but I feel know all about Chicago from having been a big ER fan once - and it was always snowing in ER.

Iota - exciting, scary, weird....

NB - you had snow too? And bad luck on leaving the window open...whose fault was that then?

BM - yes, and if you leave the heating on all night it's really clunky and noisy as well. (And I might well tap you for some introductions!)

Audrey said...

New York is much, much colder but as they say, it's a different kind of cold. You will roast in doors and freeze outside. It's a really dry heat and you can never really control it because you will probably live in an apartment building and the maintenance people control the heat.

I have two words for you: LONG UNDERWEAR.

Elsie Button said...

i'm with you, our house is bloody freezing.

And i cannot believe this... some friends of ours (who have a two year son) slept on their small boat which doesn't have ANY form of heating, on the bristol channel last night - and it was supposed to be -4 !!!

Millennium Housewife said...

Dear NVG,
I have much work still yet to do. Please invest in fingerless gloves for typing and thermo nuclear heating.
Yours
Big Freeze (in the arctic aka Tiny Freeze, I'm over here to assuage my inferiority complex)

nappy valley girl said...

Audrey - I will dig out the ski-ing thermals. We will be living on Long Island, which is no doubt even colder...

Elsie - that sounds quite mad. Almost as mad as the couple we knew who sailed round the world when she was heavily pregnant....

MH - aha, Big Freeze, you're definitely a man then? But I hear you might be gone by the weekend - good riddance to you!

Hadriana's Treasures said...

Brrr. It's cold up here too. Sympathising hugely. Vests, tights, thermal socks, jumpers, layers etc. are much in evidence....but I still love looking at the snow. :) Hxx