It was the winter of fires that would not take, of ash everywhere, never enough heat. The winter of ice: opaque waves creeping closer over the roads at night, shutting you off from time and the outside. Everything stopped. Your watch, your heater. #Kindling #Heating

You piled all you could on your bed but still the cold woke you at least twice an hour. You dozed all morning. Afternoons you prepared for evening, spent all your daylight kindling,

willing the flames to live; lost hours crouched in the hearth, giving mouth to mouth to the sputtering coal, praying for breath. You knew you were just treating symptoms. The problem lay farther than you could reach, no matter how you contorted yourself. The chimney

was stuffed with the stubs of years condensed into soft black snow that swallowed your stretching arms when you went to clear it. It needed more than you had; somebody trained in removing the past. But this was the winter you forgot how to use the phone, forgot

how to write a letter, construct a sentence. You failed in the cold alone, speechless, convinced it was something you’d done or not done. By dark the room would be fully ablaze, lit by laughing flames, denying there’d ever been a struggle. Meanwhile

months passed, scrunched up like scrap on the grate, and all that dead weight you ignored built up like the frost as it kept getting colder. #CentralHeating #FuelPoverty #EnergyCrisis #Kindling #RentalLife

It was not fun. I do not recommend. No amount of jumpers or hats solved the problem of it being -10 in the bathroom in the morning.

@pollyrowena I thought everyone got chilblains in winter when I was a child. Got them on fingers & toes, even with gloves & 2 pairs socks, which sucked (though got me extra time when I had an exam once)

@BarrowMember I couldn't understand what was happening that first year when my toes swelled up! This is what people who say 'put a jumper/socks on' don't get - if you're already doing that and get chilblains as regular, where does it leave you?!

@pollyrowena Polly ~ this is a wonderful poem. Rekindles thoughts of my childhood in the 1950s. Ice on the inside of the bedroom window. Curled up tight in my bed, unwinding inch by inch. Longing to drift away to the stars through my little window.

@BaitTheLines Thanks - I love that imagine of unwinding inch by inch. Also that excellent photo of you on the cover!

@pollyrowena That's such a shame Polly, the same happened to me in a poorly insulated rented house we lived in during the pandemic - it really hurts - ouch and ouch! The only answer I can find since then is to never let the feet get cold but that's a challenge!

@JohnEWilk I have some very thick beautiful handmade wool socks that help but my circulation in my extremities is so bad it's an uphill struggle!

@pollyrowena Solidarity with this! Chilblains and general terrible circulation are always there to greet me come September x