PRONE TO COLD

I don’t understand why it is, but these days I am definitely prone to the cold in a way I don’t think I ever used to be.

I’m not thinner. No, if anything there’s more meat on the bones so I doubt it’s that. It might be climate change I suppose, but there’s been no talk of colder winters, only wetter ones. And no-one else I know has said anything about feeling the cold more.

Nevertheless, on the way to the Post Office today I was shuddering with a raw arctic blast. Coat zipped up, hood over head, walking fast, reciting the Kings and Queens of England… juddering as if it were a trek to one of the polar ice caps.

I was posting a copy of my book. Excitingly, someone I don’t know had ordered it from South Wales, and it felt significant to pray for it as it went under the Post Office counter.

“What’s inside?” asked the clerk.

“B-book,” I stammered. I find it odd how they have to ask you these days - rather like the doctor’s receptionist. What’s it regarding? None of your business. You can’t say that. I didn’t say that.

To be honest I’ve been in there enough, posting books these last few weeks, I’m surprised they’re even curious. A different type of person would say something flippant and sarcastic when asked what's inside. Anthrax, Mein Kampf, The A5 Guide to Public Anarchy - that kind of thing. But then those people get arrested by customs officers for ‘messing about’ don’t they.

I expect I’m cold because I’m just, well, a little bit older. Someday I’ll need the thermostat cranked up to 25 and I’ll be eating soup in front of Cash in the Attic. But the days of the tartan blanket are a long way off, I hope. I’ve got a lot more books to take to the post office before then, I assure you.

I just hope it starts warming up a bit, sometime soon.