The cold could be worse ....

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."