I am a real wimp when it comes to being cold.  I don’t like it one little bit – and I grew up in the North of England where it’s freezing for nine months of the year, tolerable for two months of the year and the final month is made up of scattered days that get over 20C. 

I’ve lived in Australia for over thirty years, six of those in the wet tropics of Northern Queensland where it’s close enough to the equator to believe it impossible to have cold weather – but it’s really all a matter of perspective and I’ve been freezing my socks off.  The other day, the temperature got down to an all-time-low for my part of the world, just 9C.  The last time it got that cold was in 1960.  It was only at that temperature for a couple of hours first thing in the morning, but when your average winter temperature is in the mid to upper 20’s that was a shock to the system.  Winter had arrived!

Winter is our main tourist season.  What we consider to be freezing is in fact welcome warmth from those folk who live a lot further south and there is a constant stream of caravans driving through our town.  You can usually tell locals from the tourists – the tourist are dressed for summer!  Me?  Well… I am definitely acclimatised to living here.

Traditionally, our houses are built to capture every single breeze.  They are raised off the ground so that the air can flow underneath and the older houses may have insulation under the tin roof nowadays, but the walls are thin and the ‘ventilation’ holes are many.  I can sit on my toilet and look down through pin-prick holes in the floorboards and there is a gap under the back door.  Capturing every breeze is fantastic – until it’s not!  And our very short-lived winter is one of those times.

I’d just moved into my cottage.  It was built over 70 years ago – which is pretty old in this area.  I love it.  It’s quirky and not perfectly square, a bit wobbly…   and it is an absolute ice box in the mornings!  For the last week I have been FREEZING! 

I’m dressed in many, many layers of clothes.  The socks and the Ugg-boots came out of hibernation, and the shorts and frocks went into temporary retirement.  There was a singlet, and t-shirt, of top of that there is a hoodie with the hood up, and it all is topped by a blanket wrapped around me because I don’t actually own a coat.  You’d think I was part of an expedition to the South Pole!

But I had no gloves.  My fingers were freezing as I typed on my keyboard.  I had to do something about that and as we don’t have any shops that would sell gloves other than for working outside or safety, I hopped over to Amazon and bought a wonderful pair of silky, fur-lined, fingerless (because I still need to type) gloves.

They arrived a few days later but it was too late.  Our very short-lived winter had gone.  At least I am now prepared for that one week of each year for the rest of my life that can get a bit chilly!  As long as I don’t forget where I put these gloves!!!