Warming to winter’s routines (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Warming to winter’s routines

8:43am Tuesday 2nd December 2008 in Columnists By Debbie Lindley

I admit the recent cold snap has rather taken me by surprise. Now, before you start thinking I don’t know a warm front from a cold front, I should stress that I’ve had a week off. So in the same way a doctor may consider watching Casualty a busman’s holiday, our telly stayed safely tuned away from anything to do with meteorology until I woke early to be greeted by the first sounds of winter, namely next door trying to de-ice their windscreen with a credit card.

Using a credit card is a new one on me, but I’m going to remember it for when I’m in hurry. Our neighbours swear it’s tailor-made for removing ice since it’s flexible yet strong and since I would no sooner use it to buy anything in the shops until the credit crunch finally goes soggy it might as well feel some pain like the rest of us. Oh bless! Aren’t I just a joy to be around at the moment?

Scraper technology, though, has moved on since I bought my first one. I seem to remember it was made of blue plastic – which was an unfortunate colour choice, bearing in mind that after using it for more than a minute, you would generally lose all feeling in the hand you were using and on a dark morning it was impossible to tell where the plastic ended and your arm began.

Hubby is a fan of popping sheets of paper under his windscreen wipers and he’s never found a problem with this method. In the past, I’ve done it myself, although I still cringe when I think back to the time I set off to work with half a DIY supplement flapping around on my rear wiper, a shame really since they had an amazing array of tiles all at 20 per cent off.

Now winter has arrived, I’ve been keeping warm with frequent trips up and down the attic stairs to find scarves, gloves, hats and the like.

Every year it’s the same story, half an hour of ripping open black bin bags to find one of a pair of gloves has gone walkies to God knows where. Unearthing a pair of Megan’s mittens, I’ve resorted to a trick my mum used to employ, sewing each on to a piece of ribbon and carefully threading them up each sleeve to stop the above happening.

So far it’s working a treat, but I can’t help thinking it’s somehow NOT as much of a novelty as it used to be. Maybe it’s because mum used to use elastic instead of ribbon. It would explain why every time Meg puts one arm out she smacks herself in the face with the other.

Poor love, I daren’t tell her about Mum’s other idea of clipping my wellies together with a clothes peg at nursery school. Any combination of a playground of fresh snow and a toddler bursting to get out and play was bound to end in disaster. How I wish I’d taken the peg off first. OUCH!