Baby it's cold outside

It is bone crunchingly, ball achingly, head freezingly cold. As I write, it says on the BBC website that the UK is bracing itself for what could be the coldest night of the year, with temperatures set to plummet to -20 degrees. Well, in Kansas City it’s -40. The snow has been here for a while already – we’ve already suffered one of the worst blizzards to hit the Midwest for over a decade, where at least 17 people died (on Christmas Eve, nice). Since then, the temperatures have been plummeting almost daily, and now the wind chill factor has kicked in, hence the super-minus temperatures.

I don’t walk anywhere any more, I scurry, in a hunched-neck, rigid posture designed to get me from the car to the nearest indoors as quickly as possible. My face has become reptilian, such is the damage the wind and cold has done to my delicate epidermis. My nose has a constant drip hanging from the end of it (again, nice), and the handkerchief I tossed into my handbag just before leaving England has seen more action in the past two weeks than in the last five years since my mother placed it lovingly in my stocking, since when it has mostly lain crumpled at the bottom of my sock drawer.

Earlier today, we decided to go and look for another second hand car - of course - what else would you do when it's cold outside? The garage owner said he had already worked his way though several spare car batteries as they were dying in the cold weather. This was amply demonstrated when we decided to test-drive one car - which promptly died on us when we tried to turn it around. We had to be rescued.

Prior to that, I went to the gym - as much as to try and warm up than anything else. A hardcore bicycle did nothing to de-thaw my toes, so I decided to hit the sauna. Twenty minutes later... I still had cold toes.

Right now I'm sitting in my warm room, about to hit the hay. My feet are still freezing. Tomorrow, I'm staying in bed.