IF there has been one startling realisation brought about by the ongoing UK energy crisis – with its soaring gas and electricity prices – it is that I have morphed into a coddled creature I barely recognise.
It wasn't always like this. Through most of my childhood in the 1980s we still had a coal fire. We didn't have double glazing or central heating until I was reaching secondary school age.
Visiting my paternal grandmother on winter afternoons, I remember keeping our coats on as we huddled around her three-bar electric fire, sipping mugs of sweet tea to stay warm.
I imagine that many readers will have grown up in homes where only the main living room was heated and, even then, the fire didn't go on until 4pm most days.
Yet here I am in 2022. A far cry from that. Shivering theatrically like Scooby Doo on a creepy old ghost train. All because I have turned down the heating thermostat in a bid to curb astronomical bills.
How did I become so soft? Well, cast your mind back to the halcyon days of the not-so-distant past when there was seemingly endless possibility when it came to choosing a gas or electricity supplier.
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If one company hiked its prices, you simply stropped off like a moody teenager to find a replacement, scrolling through Uswitch on your laptop while basking in the tropical climes of a home heated to such balmy temperatures that it necessitated donning beachwear.
I still wear shorts and T-shirts around the house – but now they are part of my complex layering up routine. Getting dressed each morning takes significantly longer on account of the fact I am bundled up with multiple items of clothing.
Sometimes I forget a necessary layer – such as the thermal vest under my long-sleeved top or the giant pants under the long johns – and have to take it all off and start from scratch. Svelte and sleek it is not.
I have started getting targeted adverts and emails hawking top-of-the-range outdoors and adventure gear. What the companies sending them don't seem to realise is I am not scaling the north face of the Eiger, but rather rambling around an average Scottish home in the depths of winter.
I try to buy my thermals in the sales wherever possible. This has led to an eclectic collection of garments in garish, retina-searing hues or bearing ugly designs that other shoppers have no doubt turned their noses up at.
The other day my husband, observing the daily rigmarole and seeing a pair of camouflage long johns being hoiked on, enquired whether I was living a secret life as a member of The A-Team.
That's the thing about base layers, though. Worn beneath other clothing and in the privacy of your own abode, no one else sees them.
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So, it matters not a jot if you are wearing fleece-lined leggings that look like the clothing designer drew inspiration from a pool of cat vomit on their kitchen floor.
Every time I crank up the thermostat on the central heating, I get an immediate guilty image of flames licking a bonfire of cash in the back garden. Roll on June.
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