Life in the Freezer

(with apologies to David Attenborough for appropriating the title of his tv series, but it seemed... appropriate...)

What to tell you about our two weeks in Moscow so far? There's so much that I almost feel as if there's too much. Every day something happens and I think 'I must write / blog about that', and add it to my ever-growing mental list, where it slips to the bottom and invariably gets mislaid. So I think what I'm going to do is take it one subject at a time, and I imagine that from the title of this post you've probably guessed what today's is.

I've never been too good with extremes of temperature. As a wimpy girl I once collapsed weeping on the kitchen floor when informed that Iwould have to go back out into the cold (cold as in, oh, a paltry -4 degC) to catch the school bus that was finally on it's way after having kept us waiting for 40 minutes whilst the driver defrosted it. And when in Holland over Christmas once and I experienced -10 degC, I thought that was probably the most I could take.

When, 15 years ago, Husband was working over here after we first met and regaled me with tales of minus 25, I thought he was crazy. I mean, what kind of idiot would willingly subject themselves to a country that dishes out a climate like that, for chrissake? (Possibly the same kind of idiot who would move to said country in the depths of the coldest winter for 4 years, but let's not go there). Never mind that he always assured me that -10 degC in Moscow doesn't feel any colder than minus 2 in London due to the much greater humidity in the UK (that lovely raw, damp cold that comes in straight off the Channel, in other words), I just thought he was trying to soften me up and get me to move there. Which I never would. Obviously.

But now? I have moved here, and guess what; minus 10?

Minus 10 is for wimps. I laugh in the face of minus 10 nowadays... Pretty much like Husband did in my face this morning when, on discovering that it was minus 21 degC as we walked Boy #1 to school this morning, I remarked that it did feel a little chilly.

God, I hate it when he's right.

Obviously, when it's this cold, you do have treat the weather with respect. And that includes staying inside as much as possible and when you do have to go out, poncing about in some of the ugliest snow boots known to woman, but when it comes to keeping my toes I take no fashion prisoners. Luckily, it seems that neither does anyone else (with the exception of the fur-clad mummies at the school gate, next to whom I feel very dingy in my North Face quilted coat and Monsoon wool hat), and if you make mistake of going out not wearing anything on your head, you can expect to be stopped and harangued by strangers in the street for your stupidity.

As for the children, well they get bundled up in skipants over their trousers, with snow boots, thermal tops, jumpers, ski jackets, hats, scarves, and - in the case of Boy #2 who at 4 is finding this especially hard to handle - two lots of gloves. Let me tell you, getting that lot onto a recalcitrant child at 8am tends to slow you down somewhat. And even bundled up like that, the cold still affects them. What should be a 10 minute walk to school is currently a 20 minute crawl when my youngest is with us, due to the cold slowing him down.

I thought I'd beaten that by buying a sledge so I could pull him along in double quick time (practical and picturesque, how stylish!), but yesterday - dammit - Moscow's road sweepers did what they do best and got rid of all the snow. One day it was there, the next, gone to the great snow pile in the sky at the edge of the city somewhere. So, no snow means no sledge. I must be the only person in the city praying for more of the white stuff in the hope we make it to school on time.

However, I'm determinedly looking on the bright side. It's going to warm up tomorrow; the weather forecast is for cloud and only -12 degC; that's practically tropical compared to today.

I may hang some washing out.