I wake up now and then because the cold rouses me. Climbing from my slumber I find myself awake with the raidiating chill of the frost coming from the ceiling. If I was in a cartoon there would be zig-zagging lines penetrating the roof with inhuman power to capture me in their unholy glow. There I would be, a huddled figure with exaggerated frown lines and screwed up eyes because I am trying to stay asleep.

I find that the cold seems to ring the city in silence. There is that pause between the last hours of the previous day and the dawn. A time famous or infamous. My grandma calls these hours the 'wee sma's'. It is weird how the place where I live - so busy with sirens and traffic sounds and trains rumbling - can be as quiet as the country when the frost falls.

I went out this morning and found my car frozen shut. It creaked when I poured tepid water on it in a rushed running-late pantomine with squeegies and a kitchen jug. It's funny how winter ends colder than when it began.