Laze and zhem, just came home and it’s a nice, ambient minus 17 but they say it will get down to minus 20. Broke out the winter jacket and they laughed at it because it’s one of the old-fashioned thick fur, three-quarter length ‘dublyonki’ from ten years ago. They sniggered, I tell you.Absolutely no one would be seen dead in one of ‘em today – these days it’s all fine fur and kid leather. I’m like someone from the wilds of Siberia, a throwback to Soviet times. And yet when I stand by the road with the hood up, cadging a lift, it’s a little too hot to wear and I give thanks for my jacket.
A friend asked how cold it got in Britain. Oh, minus 2, 3. There was once minus 17. So it doesn’t get cold, he smiled. Minus 2 – that’s damned cold. He looked at me strangely. The day I was on Hadrian’s Wall at 06:00, that was cold, I continued. Damp cold. Equivalent to your minus 30. He didn’t believe me.
I can't imagine what minus 17 is like, but I do remember swimming in an open air pool in Moscow when the temperature was minus 5, with snow everywhere.
ReplyDeleteBritish cold, a unique mixture of bone chiling cold, damp, wind and the like. Nothing quite like it for chilling the blood.
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