John Pilgrim: Which is worse, the weather or thermal undies?

Ellie is quite unconcerned as is my spaniel Gemma – it’s just poor old Henry who is suffering. He’s not interested in chasing his ball or in trying to catch squirrels.

The other day he made a rather half-hearted attempt at making friends with a female golden retriever that is twice his size and, needless to say, the liaison was not a happy one.

The strong winds haven’t helped with dog walking much either.

Every winter I start out with the best intentions as far as dressing sensibly is concerned and then I get tired of all that extra clothing I have to put on.

The long johns (which seem rather popular this year) have already been discarded as uncomfortable and time wasting and the thermal socks really don’t help much either.

I purchased a rather fashionable cap but it kept blowing off and the skull cap I bought to replace it makes me look a right plonker according to my grandchildren.

There’s not much left to try really, I’m certainly not going down the balaclava helmet road because I hated them when I was a kid and they really do make you look a plonker.

I lost my gloves last week and resorted to wearing a pair of socks on my hands just like when I was a child. It’s amazing what you can get away with when you get old, people just think that you’re a bit soft in the head.

I witnessed another problem caused by the heavy winds last week.

The guy who keeps the pavements tidy (they used to be called road sweepers but I am sure that is not politically correct these days) is supplied with one of those pincer type things at the end of a long handle to save him from bending down.

The problems he had chasing pieces of paper and other stuff along the road where a sight for sore eyes.

You would have thought that council could have found something else for him to do until the wind died down, but there again I suppose they know that he does spend an awful amount of time sitting on my front wall smoking a ‘fag’.

Must go, I’m off to the shops to buy Gemma a present for Christmas and poor old Henry a cuddly toy that looks like Ellie.