Member-only story
Tough rainproof Cornish people
735.
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Once upon a time, I never bothered to wear a coat. I simply didn’t feel the cold. Especially when I was a teenager I just seemed to radiate heat all the time — though I drooped in sunny weather. I liked the cold, especially crisp frosty mornings that you used to get from October onwards. The beautiful frozen mornings alternated with freezing rain but it never bothered me.
Every morning we’d hear the sad mechanical coughing as everyone tried to get their Ford Zephyrs to start with full-on chokes (look them up). There could be freezing fog and I’d walk to school anyway. No, I never bothered with gloves because my hands used to do this weird heating-up thing. After we’d played netball in the cold, wearing our normal perv-magnet skimpy games shirts and short skirts, my hands would be red and feel like fire. Chillier mortals would queue up for me to hold their hands and warm them up. I was just grateful to dump the heat.
Yes, it was a minor superpower.
Very rarely snow would happen but usually not. Frost did, making glass blades and glass bushes.
I saw frosts this winter for the first time in several years, but my pleasure at a proper frost was tempered by my fears about the Gulf Stream (AMOC) that seems to be weakening.
However this time around I was wearing a warm coat, a jumper, a t-shirt and a cotton vest and I was still freezing.
I blame Spain for this change in me — after two years of Andalucian summers at an average of 35 deg C, my body didn’t remember how to cope with ice any more.
All around me though, are much tougher people. The neighbour across the road from me wears nothing but a vest and shorts, regardless of the weather. School kids are still following the Fresh Prince of Bel Air in their refusal to wear a coat because the Fresh Prince didn’t wear one because he lives in LA.
Cornish people also seem to be immune to rain, whether it’s doing the Wet Air kind of fine ubiquitous rain or a torrential downpour. They don’t seem to even get bronchitis like I do as I hack and cough and droop through January and February. There they are out in the rain, seemingly oblivious to the wet, not even depressed by it.
I want my superpower back!
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