Cold and Steamy Windows

It is cold here. Not the chilling, biting cold of Northern Europe, more the creeping, gnawing away at you kind of cold that you get in damper climates. When I say cold though, it has been in single digits Celsius (ie about 7 to about 9). This may not sound too cold to you, but when your apartment is as well insulated as a streetwalker's stockings, the clothes you own are meant for summer barbecues and there is no central heating ANYWHERE, then one really gets to feel it in the bones as it creeps uninvited through your less than substantial clothes over clammy skin. Not a few months ago I scoffed at those fashion shop storefront posters and billboards proclaiming the arrival of the new winter season stock and Asian women were parading around in fur in 18 degree temperatures. Now, I would rip that fur from their backs, not in an Animal Rights kind of way, more in an animalistic, get-me-warm-now kind of way. I suspect some jackets and coats will be brought back from our visit to the homeland this summer and carefully stored away for next winter. Hey, I feel a wee bit bad complaining about it when most of the mid-Northern hemisphere has had weeks on end of deluges of snow and sub-zero temperatures (so for you people, 9 degrees is tropical) but for some reason it feels colder and less bearable here.

My wife has been sick off and on now (mostly sick i.e., "on") for the best part of two weeks. I feel bad for her as she is going ballistic being stuck at home, too weak to stay up out of bed for more than a half an hour. It is at times like this when you realise that it is easy to take for granted good health and the good company of your life partner, who sustains you normally with happiness, sunny positivity, conversation, hugs and kisses a well as does an amazing amount of things which you can never dream of accomplishing on your own when there is just one of you! Message to my poor sickly wife - please get better soon, for all our sakes!!

The mountain, half-way up I live, has been in cloud for a lot of the last few weeks. That has meant everything is damp. Mould is starting to grow around window frames and in the guest bathroom and clothes never feel fully dry. Moulds smells are appearing. I hope it heats and dries up soon. When a man's golf bag goes mouldy he knows he needs to..... get out and play more? Hmmm, I wonder how Tiger is doing. He will speak tomorrow for the first time since his fire hydrant incident. Would not like to be in his shoes, even if the whole thing is an orchestrated, Tiger-controlled, charade.

Stay warm and dry out there.