I love the cold.

In winter, mind you..

Not so much in summer.

In my Gap Yah – though we didn’t call it that then: I think we called it Seventh Term Oxbridge Entrance… followed by anything you like – I directed a Cambridge May Week play. Private Lives, it was. In Clare College Gardens.

As any ful no, Cambridge May Week is what it says on the tin: so called because it describes several weeks in June.

Full of music, dancing, champagne, ball gowns, close harmony on the river… and, if you call Coward culture, Culture.

Anyways, I had a load of fun directing this.

(And just to drop a name because I’m not doing much else at the moment, my juve lead went on to become the world famous counter tenor Michael Chance. What you do mean you’ve never heard of him? How many world famous counter tenors have you heard of? There you are then. Point proved I think.)

It was outdoors, of course. On account of it was going to be lovely balmy May Week. Every night for a week. At 11 pm. And all the women wore diaphanous Twenties silk chiffon gorgeous floaty frocks with almost nothing to them. The men were slightly better clad, but not much.

Achingly romantic.

I had an amazing ASM, and I insisted – absolutely insisted – that in the closing breakfast scene there must be HOT scrambled egg. As well as hot tea and coffee and so on. I said, the audience will be able to tell. If it’s congealed and sticking cold to the plates… ugh yuk.

Since the nearest kitchen was (in those days anyway; accessible to undergraduates anyway) a good ten minutes’ walk away across Queens’ Road, she resourcefully supplied this from a series of wide-mouthed thermoses. Clever girl. Though I wouldn’t have called her that in those days because I was younger than she was.

Which was just as well. That she was clever, I mean. Absolutely just as well. The audience could most certainly tell. The steam coming off that breakfast could have been cut with one of the knives on the breakfast table and eaten with one of the forks.

Because on the first night. Monday of May Week. In, as I’ve said, Flaming June.

It snowed. It ruddy snowed.

(Though we still sold out.)

So when I say I love the cold, what I mean is, I love the cold in the right place. In my G&T on a long summer’s evening in the garden. On the slopes when you’ve spent your life’s savings on a week in Verbier. In the steely look from your barrister (provided he is yours) when questioning the guilty slimebag in the dock.

And at the New Year. In January. Definitely. Or better still, on a white Christmas.

So when we had what they call a veritable Cold Snap a week or two ago, was I rejoicing? Was I! (That’s a yes.)

This is Saving The Planet, I said merrily to myself. This will cheer the old polar bears, I thought happily, sweating away in their big fur coats on the shrinking ice caps.

Er… said our middle daughter. I’m not sure it quite works like that. A spot of cold weather doesn’t suddenly reverse Climate Change. And by the way it’s b***** cold in here so I’ve turned the thermostat right up.

Um… said our eldest. We’re spending £100 a week on firewood because we’ve got such inadequate heating. And by the way, this is what chilblains look like, apparently…

(Look quickly because I may have to delete these pretty little tootsies, as I don’t have her permission. I have asked, obv. And after waiting an absolute age and at least several minutes, realised the quickest way to get an answer is post the picture anyway.)

Ohh… said our youngest. Why is it so FREEZING.

Because, I said pompously and predictably, you don’t come out for your daily exercise in the garden and DIG with me. That would soon warm you up. For the rest of the day.

So there I was, proving my point, turning the earth manically just in order to prove the point… when I went over to check on my bees…

Oh WOE. I hate the cold, suddenly.

Every one of my three thriving summer beehives was dead as… well, as a cold, empty, deserted comb of dirty old wax.

Nothing.

No activity.

No happy sotto voce winter mild zzzzzing just to keep going.

No being stung because I wasn’t togged up in my bee armour being careful enough, and then being whizzed off in an ambulance with blue lips and my speech all jumbled up because I keep bees even though I’m allergic to the stings,

What on earth has happened, I asked my new fellow beekeeping friend. They had plenty of food. I’ve never had varroa in any of them, as far as I know.

Did you insulate the hives, he said. (He’s a bit fanatical.)

Insulate? I said. I’ve never done that before. (Never heard of anything so wet, I thought to myself.)

Ah, he said.

There you are, he said.

If only I’d known, he said. Now with his wife chipping in, on speakphone: if only we’d known. We’ve just thrown away all our spare insulation.

For goodness’ sake. I’ve been keeping bees for decades. They only started last summer. Practising on my bees. Mind you, he does read all the stuff and know stuff.

We insulated ours, they both said in unison.