A temporary case of the January Blues...

Fear not for my mental health, you can never really feel down in India with so much to see, taste and smell, but I’m physically blue at the moment with goose pimples and chills – its bloomin’ freezing here!

I know its -6° and snowing back in Blighty but you have the 3Cs to keep you warm – curtains, carpet and central heating. Curry only works for so long (believe me it’s been tempting to apply extra hot tikka paste on my toes at night to warm them up). We seem to be suffering with the same Arctic Wind but topped up with the usual icy breeze off the Himalayas and freezing fog making it even colder. Combined with marble floors, mosquito mesh not quite providing double glazing, Delhi is definitely in the midst of a Big Chill.

The only place to be warm is in bed. So my flatmate and I are currently living like residents of an old people’s home. Food is cooked and eaten in blanket shawls and then it is back into bed for conversation under the covers with bedroom doors ajar enough to stop the draft and to converse. The worse thing is getting up in the morning to have a shower. India is extremely eco friendly as to heat any hot water you need to switch a geyser on. So you have to leap out of bed, flick the switch and jump back under the covers to defrost whilst the water heats up.

You’ve drawn the short straw in our flat if you are on Tilaram duty. Tilaram is our household help who arrives at 8am. The geyser in the kitchen needs to be switched on for the washing up, which involves crossing several marble floors in slipper socks to reach the kitchen. It’s sort of like early morning skating. I think Tilaram suffers the most, as neither of us get out of bed until the doorbell rings. He’s constantly greeted by a bed headed blondie in pyjamas looking slightly dazed. He’s a shy 17 year old who is slowly getting used to our Hinglish and pyjama clad cleaning instructions that we are starting to win over by making cups of chai with at least five sugars in.

Work is no better on the warm front. You need to be prepared to wear your coat all day and this week we’ve also suffered power cuts. Typing in the dark has been good assimilation to how the rest of my office lives as half of them are blind, but it does make you feel even chillier and your meeting notes are rubbish. The worst thing is you can’t dress properly for smart work occasions. I love the fact unlike back in London, where my diary was full of back to back meetings it’s all a bit last minute. Having been told two hours before kick off we were off to the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment Accessible Website launch in town, I was regretting my not so svelte layered look.

My look du jour currently consisted of on top: a vest, two long sleeved cotton layers, a cashmere jumper, finished with two layers of polar fleece, down below I was sporting a delightful leggings ‘n’ trousers combo finished with some fetching well travelled trekking shoes. I look like an outward bound instructor gone AWOL after a doughnut eating competition. We had seats near the front and having to shimmy down a row of beautiful sari clad ladies who were shivering with dignity I felt so ashamed. When we all headed to the garden for high tea I felt slightly smug but aware all eyes were on me when I went back for extra cake to keep warm...

Highlights: Well I never thought I would be complaining about the cold, but it’s a fantastic excuse to eat more (but slightly regret cooking up the only sweet comfort food I could do on a gas stove which is chocolate refrigerator cake – frozen blocks of choccy lard have limited heating properties it seems). Seeing how everyone else is coping with the Big Chill – the weather has bought out the truly entertaining (even dogs in India get their own coats, Elvis the Pug our favourite local Rude Dog rules in the fashion stakes) and truly humbling (people huddling around fires day and night makes your realise having the luxury of food, a blanket and roof of your head is a lot more than many...), going for lunchtime walks with colleagues to keep warm (when the sun does decide to put his hat on, it’s an office expedition to the market and opportunity to get to know everyone a bit better), actually looking forward to the temperature rising (I know I’ll regret this when it’s 45° outside but we’ve got a roof terrace to do some serious lounging on!)