...Or Feeling In My Fingers

I like my mornings like I like my eggs - sunny side up. And Hobart mornings are fresh like eggs...before they're cooked and 24 seconds after they come out of the chicken. It's deceptive - look out the window and find that there are clear blue skies, no wind and rosellas in my tree. Beautiful. There is also snow to 200 metres. Aesthetically stunning, yes, but stepping out onto my balcony, my nose, ears and fingertips are suddenly screaming "did you just walk into a freezer?! Goodbye, I'm going to fall off now." And as I make my way down to the bus stop, I look at what I think is the river dividing the two halves of my city. But it's not. Well, it is, but it's covered in a low, low cloud - a fog called Bridgewater Jerry (it is that cold that often that the silly thing needs a name). Every fibre of my being is demanding that I go back home, crank the heater, get into my flannie jarmies and man hoodie and eat clinkers.

The Winter months are notorious for this; deciding that maybe I should leave the house and have some fun - see my friends - and then deciding that hell will freeze over before I go out into that chilly weather (mind you, at this rate it probably will). Sometimes I'll suck it up and go out on the weekend, but I'll still rug up. I'll be the only person in the club wearing jeans and a big ol' woollen jacket - every other girl will be prancing about in teeny dresses and tops small enough to fit in your back pocket. I might look ridiculous, girl, but I'll be the one having a laugh when you're at the cab rank freezing your barely covered backside off.

I know it's not just me, either. My other half often refuses to get up, reasoning that he is simply just too cold, and he'll die if he has to leave the bed and doona. Die, I tell you. And work is slow sometimes, too, and I am pretty sure that that is purely because people are at home going "I don't need to terrorise them today, it can wait until the temperature is in double digits." I myself have been tempted to call into work because 6:30 in the morning isn't condusive to effective...well, anything, really. On those mornings it becomes an argument with myself - would I pay my day's wage in an effort to stay warm? Oh, God, do I want to say no, but deep inside, I know it's a big, fat, yes.

So my social life will suffer, and I'll become pasty and dry skinned from the artificial heat blaring through my loungeroom; my blu-ray player will be my best friend and I'll drink enough tea to drown a navy seal. But sucked in to the rest of you, because even though you might be healthy, happy and living, I'll at least be warm.