It's been getting steadily colder here (as one would expect of course) but the thing that one continually faces as a foreigner from warmer climes is that when you slip and say, "It's getting cold out there," the locals laugh at you and say, "cold? that's not cold, wait until it hits -30! (or 40 or so).
Well yesterday when I left home at 7am for a Sunday breakfast meeting (don't even ask) the external temperature indicator on the car gave me the cheery news that the termpature outside was -28 degrees. Just lovely!
And I have to say, that given the forecast high for today was -22C, I have officially given Caroline the right to claim to be cold! Hey, it's the least that I could do.
And as if that's not cold enough, they announced on the radiator that the windchill factor meant that we could expect it to feel like -34C.
I didn't spend a lot of time outside today and one of the reasons for that is that I haven't really managed to get around to buying myself a decent pair of winter shoes yet. And I really, really need to do it in a hurry.
When we left home, I really had no concept of what it might feel like when the temperature plummeted to something akin to that on the 5th plane of hell, but I can now say that I'm getting more than just a conceptual understanding.
It doesn't take long when you're outside to feel the effects. And the first thing that I've noticed it on is my ears. There's nothing like coming in from a short walk outside and having to touch them with your hands to make sure that they're still attached. I really should remember to take my beanie with me to work tomorrow.
At least at the moment we look like only having a week around the -20 mark before heading back up to a significantly more comfortable range around 0 to -5C.
February might be another matter.
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