As anyone who has been to visit us at the House At The Top Of The Hill can testify, we keep our house at the temperature commonly known as Colder Than A Well Diggers Ass. We could claim that we're being green, or that we are just too tight-fisted to heat our house, but the strange truth is; we don't mind the cold.
So while our family, friends & neighbours have had boilers-a-boiling, and the radiators-a-radiating, we're still merrily ambling around in T-shirts/shirts*. But for one thing.
Socks.
Most of the year, socks are something I regard as an unpleasant necessity (like Sheffield Council, or a smear test) that sometimes can't be avoided, so best to grit your teeth & get it over with. Back when I was a cub, it was only the threat of a Scolding From Nan that could make me wear socks, and I merrily scampered barefoot across grass, dirt, mud, sand, concrete, broken glass, drydocks, rotting planks, towpaths & Narrowboats, my leathery soles impervious to twigs, pebbles, rusty nails & cat claws. My mother, long since resigned to the fact that I was Peculiar, made sure I got a tetanus every 7 years & left me to it.
But every year, from November to February, socks & I are grudgingly united. But on the one condition that they must look like I have slain & skinned characters from Sesame Street.
*I'm the T-shirt wearer of the household. Mike favours the kind of shirts recycled out of wallpaper from Stately Homes
No comments:
Post a Comment