I’d bought a pair of Nordic style gloves, knitted and with several layers of insulation but they still won’t do, my hands (to be exact my fingers) still froze. Am I being a baby? They really hurt out there. The numbing comes quickly, even as I am leaving the door, and then the stinging. My circulation is sluggish. I am getting older and it tells in my hands. The skin on the tips of my fingers crack and cut, and my nails chip. My hands hurt in this cold. I don’t do well in it. Does anybody? Some do. Like the Yorkshireman who used to work in the Health Food Shop (now defunct, the shop that is not him) who always wore shorts and rarely a coat, swearing that he never felt the cold. As my mother would have said, “Bully for you”. What can I try next in the glove department? Fur? It hardly squares with my vegan sensibilities. But needs must. And I do need. Coming into the warmth almost hurts me, the stinging certainly increases. I think of the Bronte sisters at the school in Cowan Bridge and their childblained hands. Poor loves. So little comfort. And I think of her, her eyelids shut and her face with its new mantle of an old woman soon to leave us. Poor love. May it be gentle for you.
