My sleep patterns have been dodgy in part because of temperatures below freezing and being in an old house, and I'm trying to get back on a better schedule. Today I happen to be reading through letters of Charles Dickens, and I shouldn't complain. Here from a letter to a friend, the letter dated 1 February 1861.
"You have read in the papers of our heavy English frost. At Gad's Hill it was so intensely cold, that in our warm dining-room on Christmas Day we could hardly sit at the table. In my study on that morning, long after a great fire of coal and wood had been lighted, the thermometer was I don't know where below freezing. The bath froze, and all the pipes froze, and remained in a stony state for five or six weeks. The water in the bedroom-jugs froze, and blew up the crockery. The snow on the top of the house froze, and was imperfectly removed with axes. My beard froze as I walked about, and I couldn't detach my cravat and coat from it until I was thawed at the fire."