For Crying Out Loud

My father skid on snow? NO WAY! I always thought my father was the paragon of car control ... hmmm.

On the other hand, we laughed out loud at this entry. I can just see that mischievous glint in Daddy's eye as he said it, too.

It has been so cold this week it made me think of the Falklands. No insulation. HOWLING winds, and near-freezing temperatures. Brrr. How I miss insulation.

Thanks for the weather update. That will help with the packing. I will also check online before I start packing. Layers, lots of layers. I didn't miss insulation so much as centeral heating. But if the houses had been better insulated, the peat stove would have been enough. And showers. That was the other thing I really missed. And grocery stores. Those were the three things I missed the most.

I can barely remember how cold the Falklands were. I can remember being able to remember it much better than I can now.

There's a two memories that really stick out, though. The first is my feet getting so cold that the blood froze and I got these blisters that itched like you would not believe once they thawed out. I got them walking from house to house looking for Daddy one day. I think I was three.

The second one is going through Argentina and it was so hot that we were wearing shorts and t-shirts and sweating and asking to sit outside at cafes and ordering iced tea - and Uncle Gene was in a winter coat and everyone was staring at us like we were mad. I think it must have been about 60 degrees.

It wasn't that the Falklands were all that cold, but that they were always cold. Outside and inside. Winter and summer. The hottest day in the middle of the summer (Dec 24, 1974, as a matter of fact)was 70 F. I thought we were going to all pass out from the heat. Of course, the peat stove was on, so that made the house uncharacteristically warm. A really warm summer day would be around 65 - 68. At 60 the kiddie pools would come out, so about the time I was taking off my winter coat, the kids were splashing around in wading pools. Guddling, it was called. If you look at the pictures of us picnicing at the beach in the summer, we all had our winter coats on. That was the summer.

Winter was not all that cold, but without insulation or central heat, the house wasn't all that warm, either. I think it only snowed twice in the two years we were there. But the year round weather was between 40 and 50 degrees and rainy. Literally 2 days out of 3 it rained. If you had two sunny days in a row, you knew it was going to rain on the third. And the wind blew all (and I really do mean ALL) the time. When the wind stopped (a rare occurance), it was kind of spooky. Now, with the peat stove in the kitchen, that room was nice and warm and cozy, if not a bit confining. The rest of the house was not. Not the living room, not the bedroom, not the bathroom.

In one way, it was easier. You never had to guess what the weather would be like and therefore how to dress in the morning. You only needed one wardrobe. You didn't have this ritual of putting away or getting out your winter clothes. You just had your clothes.

The irony is that now that we do have central heat, we keep it at about 64, which all our guests find way to cold for them.