It is getting colder and darker of a morning now and I sense that it is my primeval instinct to hibernate making it hard for me to open my eyes. I don’t want to stir, or get up and get dressed and go to the gym; I think about it but the overwhelming desire for sloth and comfort makes me pull the winter duvet up under my chin, and I don’t want Chris to draw back the curtains on another grey day (even though I’m enjoying painting a grey scene on my most recent canvas), but he does so anyway. It doesn’t help that “the men in orange”, the workers on the sea wall repairs, who are like the shoe-maker’s elves, have been working all through the night with machinery clanking, generators thrumming and lights blazing (or so it seems in the darkness of the early hours).

At last I succumb to the urging of Chris and I sit up and halfheartedly sip my cup of tepid, weak, watery grey tea (which is how I like it, except that it must be hot). We decide to go for a cycle ride to Cockwood, if it’s not raining – it’s a good way to get the circulation going and allay the onset of hibernation.

I don’t know what to wear – it is cold when you start out cycling but you soon warm up – so I put on my three-quarter length electric-orange sweat pants with the palm tree motiff and Malibu printed on the pocket (I note that I match “the men in orange” but I quite like that as they are our heroes); and I don a white t-shirt, which looks rather plain and utilitarian, so I throw on a multi-coloured floral top to cover the plainness and make me feel summery; a white cardigan and mauve and pink socks with a friesian cow pattern completes my ensemble. I think I look colourful but a bit odd; Chris says I look cute but I suspect that he doesn’t want me to waste any more time by changing.

The tide is out at Cockwood Harbour and the sun is hidden by layers of grey clouds; the mud smells a bit, and I can tell that Chris wants to go.

“Let’s just take a look at my boat,” I implore. He can’t say no. I love the idea of buying that boat but Chris says it isn’t worth twelve hundred pounds, even with a motor.

We agree that, if I manage to buy the Orkney long-liner at the right price, it would be a sweet little vessel for taking out into the estuary (not the open sea); and I could paint it like a narrow boat even though it is a round, bumble-bee like craft. It will be the prettiest boat in Cockwood Harbour – if only….

Seeing as the tide is out we walk under the railway bridge to the estuary side. Well, it may not be particularly attractive on a grey day, and those rocks covered with bladder wort seaweed (if that is what it is called) look big, looming and warty, however, it’s still nice to be out in the fresh air, regardless of the funny, fishy, seaweedy smell which is around this side too.

We take a new route on the way home – we’ve never been on this cycle path before – after all these years of living here. We wonder if it was made at the same time as the big cycle track – the gates look the same. Even under a cloudy sky, it is beautiful. Chris says the sun is trying to come through. The path runs along beside a tree-lined waterway cutting across from Dawlish Warren to Exeter Road, near the new Sainsbury’s supermaket (in case you want to find it). The sun shines behind the thinner clouds, bringing light if not warmth and we cross over the main road to take the more scenic country lane route on the last leg of our way home.

We arrive back invigorated and hungry; I am so glad that I got out of bed this morning. All the same, I don’t rule out hibernating when the clocks go back next weekend; and we’re looking forward to Australia in the new year, but until then, we must enjoy the grey – a bit like getting older…not that I have any grey…

Can humans hibernate? As a driver survives for TWO MONTHS trapped without food at  -30c, this theory could transform medicine

By JOHN NAISH
UPDATED: 15:48, 21 February 2012

Few can fully imagine the frozen nightmare that Swedish motorist Peter Skyllberg endured for two months, trapped and slowly dying inside his ice-bound car on a remote track after it became bogged down in snow drifts last December.

As his body temperature plummeted in the Scandinavian winter, he would have fallen ever more deeply into the grip of hypothermia.

The condition would have rendered his frozen brain disoriented and prone to hallucinations in the darkness of his snow-sealed vehicle.

Peter Skyllberg was trapped for two months inside his car. Miraculously, the freezing temperatures and scarce oxygen may actually have saved his life

Thoughts of rescue or escape would have faded as his consciousness slipped away.

And as Skyllberg, 44, lay shivering in his dark, dank tomb in temperatures as low as -30c, the air inside the car would have become ever staler as oxygen levels fell.

Curled up in his sleeping bag, his starving body would have started to shut down, muscle by muscle, organ by organ.

Miraculously, however, the freezing temperatures and scarce oxygen may actually have saved Skyllberg’s life.

The world watched in astonishment as he was pulled from his car on Friday, emaciated, in a torpid state and barely able to talk — but alive.

The story of Skyllberg’s escape from an icy death follows a series of astounding incidents where men, women and even children have survived conditions so cold that they should, by all accounts, have frozen to death.

But these cases have inspired doctors to investigate how such medical miracles occur, and their discoveries are opening up a freezing frontier of medicine.

For far from being deadly, extreme cold could offer a new way to save the lives of people who have suffered heart attacks and strokes. Some experts believe it may even provide a cure for certain cancers.

The circumstances of Skyllberg’s icy incarceration give us clues as to why he survived his ordeal.

When he was found on Friday near the northern town of Umea, just south of the Arctic Circle, he had been snowed into his car since at least December.

As Peter Skyllberg’s body temperature plummeted in the Scandinavian winter, he would have fallen ever more deeply into the grip of hypothermia

Although he had no food, he had been able to drink melted snow.

As Dr Ulf Segerberg, the chief medical officer at Norrland’s University Hospital in Umea, explains: ‘Humans can tolerate a month of starvation, so long as they have water to drink.’

But he was also buried deep in snow, and research indicates that conditions inside this freezing, fusty tomb may have set off a ‘hibernation’ response in his body.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2103961/Can-humans-hibernate-As-driver-survives-TWO-MONTHS-trapped-food–30c-theory-transform-medicine.html#ixzz3H4S9nc00
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“English Apart” is the name of the English language school set up by my brother-in-law Glyn and his Welsh friend Emlyn; the school in Brest (Brittany, where we spent last weekend) is a great hit with students and the employers who send them there to improve their English.

Having arrived at Roscoff early on Friday morning we – Chris, Bobbie (our youngest daughter), Martin (her boyfriend) and me – drove straight to English Apart to see Glyn. Almost immediately, Glyn enlisted our services as English folk (although, strictly speaking, I’m an Australian and Martin is Polish, not that the students would have noticed). Firstly, he introduced us to the group of students downstairs – the beginners, as we were to find out.

“‘Allo, my name…is…Sherry,” said a swarthy man of about forty eight as he held out his hand to shake mine.

“Hello Sherry!” I answered enthusiastically in an attempt to hide my surprise.

Sherry, who needed a shave, looked a tad bewildered.

“Tcherry,” he tried again.

“Oh… Cherry?” it was my turn to look confused, “What a pretty name!”

Cherry smiled.

“In England Cherry is a girl’s name,” I said slowly and in a French accent so that Cherry would understand me better.

At that moment Glyn interjected:

“He’s not called Cherry, his name is Terry, and he’s a hotel receptionist!”

“Oh,” I looked at the dark-skinned, balding receptionist with the five o’clock shadow from the day before, “sorry, but I thought you said Cherry, not Terry.”

“I ham Tcherry, no Sherry,” he laughed at the misunderstanding and nodded his head profusely.

While the going was good I made my getaway and moved on down the line to a group of three young women who were to be my students, or rather, they chose me to answer their list of questions. Already the others had been pairing off for questions and answers at tables in different parts of the large room; I was the last to get cracking and I had the biggest group.The nervous blonde introduced herself as “Kerry”.

“Kerry?” I asked to make sure I had got it right this time.

“Ker…ry,” she faltered a little.

“That’s funny,” I said, “your name rhymes with Terry!”

She looked blank.

“You know, a rhyme – a poem, a verse? Like William Shakespeare – Terry and Kerry?”

“Ah Shakespeare!” she seemed to grasp my point but I thought it unwise to pursue the matter any longer.

Then I met a shy girl with a barely audible voice; her name was “Sea Lion” or Celine as Cindy, the bright one, pointed out. Cindy asked most of the questions.

“‘Ave you hever been to Paris?” she read from her exercise book.

“Oh yes, I love Paris. I have been to Paris many times, the first time I went with a boyfriend, not Chris; that was before I was married,” I spoke incredibly slowly to ensure their comprehension.

Obviously, I tried to make my answers as interesting as possible – gesticulations helped. “I live in Dawlish by the sea (wave motions) and a railway line (choo, choo – arms making circles); “I was born in Australia” (hop like a kangaroo) – strange, they didn’t know that kangaroos come from Australia; “I am an artist” (move arm up and down with imaginary brush) – I think they think I’m a painter and decorator.

There were some vaguely embarrassing silences while I waited for either a response to my answer or the next question. My French accent, which came out quite naturally, seemed to be of some help; occasionally I noted a spark of understanding in a pair of eyes – a momentary relief from the blank expressions – and I felt something akin to the satisfaction of being a good teacher. My mind wandered ahead – I fancied that I might be offered a part-time job at English Apart.

The clever-clogs chaps upstairs were so advanced that I asked them the questions.

“How could I impress a French person with my knowledge of French?” I asked.

“Comment t’appelles-tu?” suggested David.

“That’s way too easy. Who would be impressed with that? Isn’t there something else you can think of?”

“Que pense-tu de politics Français?(What do you think of French politics?)” David looked at Vincent for confirmation.

Several minutes later I was still memorising my sentence to impress when Glyn appeared upstairs and commended me on my great teaching ability.

“Cindy, Celine and Caroline just told me that you’d been to Paris before with your previous  husband,” Glyn laughed.

“Who’s Caroline?” I queried.

“Kerry,” he quipped.

And over the phone that evening, when trying to impress a certain Portuguese friend with my increased knowledge of French (since last time) I asked:

“Que pense-tu de politics Francoise?”

Joking apart, and to be frank (or Francoise), it doesn’t look like I shall be offered that teaching post at English Apart.

Quite early on in the four month long saga of our ailing boiler Geoff may well have regretted his rash promise to guarantee his work for a year; he seemed loath to return, sometimes we were angry, sometimes we were embarrassed; sometimes, hoping for a miracle, we left it for a while rather than make that call to our frustrated heating engineer. But, hats off to Geoff for keeping his word and for not attempting to extract any more money from us (a mention of the price of a particular new part fell on deaf ears and since then he has been stoical).

Periodically, upon turning on a hot tap, we have endured the sounds of a fog horn (sometimes like that of a small fishing vessel, but mostly like the Queen Mary!) – short bursts, long bursts and staccato – or we’ve been startled by explosive pops, sometimes frightening blasts (inside and outside), followed by the smell of gas; then we were back to the fog horns and, finally, nothing – no pop, no ignition, no comforting purr and definitely no hot water, let alone central heating. And it is getting cold now.

Geoff came around when we got back from Lorna’s funeral yesterday.

“You hate us and our boiler – don’t you?” I joshed.

“I should have just bought you a new boiler,” he joshed back.

After all this time and so many visits Geoff feels more like a friend than a boiler repair man; and, as I discovered through our countless conversations, he is so much more than that. Our former art student heating engineer is also a photographer, art historian, art collector, world traveller, ex-husband, father, boyfriend and an excellent cook – to list just a few of his achievements.

Geoff was interested to hear about a funny coincidence at the wake only an hour earlier…

I had remarked that one of Lorna’s neighbours at the gathering bore a striking resemblance to the English comedian Hugh Dennis and a conversation about celebrities ensued (as they do). At last I mentioned the chance meeting I had years ago with the beautiful actress, Jean Simmons (of Spartacus fame) who was considering moving to Dawlish at the time. She had been surprised and delighted to find that someone recognised her – “It doesn’t happen very often nowadays,” she told me. And I felt good because I was the only one in Dawlish, amongst all the throng of people passing by, who realised who was in our midst. Just as I was saying what a lovely lady Jean Simmons had been, an old gentleman, hitherto silent as he sat on the sofa, suddenly became animated and said:

“My family, who were jewellers, lived in Golders Green and Jean Simmons’ father and my father were friends. He could remember when Jean was a little girl. She was lovely.”

Geoff agreed that, indeed, it had been a great coincidence.

“But I have an even more unlikely one…” began Geoff gleefully.

“It happened years ago, when I was still married, and we were in Ceylon. We were visiting a Buddhist temple in the jungle of Candy. I had left my wife half-way up the rickety stairs – she was afraid of heights (I could sympathise) – and I had continued going up; there was a log-jam of people coming down and we all had to stop and shuffle by one another. I heard an apparently Sinhalese lady speaking in perfect English.

‘Are you English?’ I asked.

‘No, but my sister lives in England. Perhaps you know my sister?’ she suggested.

I thought, “Oh yeah, how likely is that going to be’ – I mean, Sally, in the whole of England with a population of sixty million?

‘My sister has a hair-dressing salon in a little seaside town called Dawlish,’ she told me.”

“Not the one in the Strand? Not the one my mum used to go to – and her husband was the parking attendant at Somerfields?” I interjected.

“Yes,” Geoff laughed, “I brought home a letter for her from her sister!”

Geoff was right, I couldn’t outdo that one!

And of the boiler? So far so good. I bet Geoff doesn’t want to see the boiler again until next summer but he’s quite welcome to call in for a cup of tea when he’s passing.