Snap

 If you listen closely then you will hear the sound of palms rubbing together. For many its to keep warm in this cold and depressive period. For an elite few though it is the rubbing the hands with glee and as a cold snap means their banks balance is escalating faster than those old electricity meters used to whizz when you turned on the hot tap. Energy bills doubling and trebling and spiralling so the select rich can horde even more piles of cash with billion dollar profits and gigantic bonuses. Its not just the poor that are feeling the pinch of the energy crisis but those better off financially too who have bigger homes and require more heating and light. Its not just the homes but the businesses from the small individuals to the bigger establishments. As if things were not bad enough with the cost of living and energy rises heading to Christmas then a cold snap appears to really darken the mood. Expected at this time of year of course but that doesn't make it any easier to accommodate.

It is a dilemma. You sit freezing under a duvet with a water bottle and still the end of your nose and maybe your hands are like ice. You want to "take the chill out the air" with an hour's blast of the central heating but you also in your head the bill coming through the post and the regret felt that you did not just keep that heating off. You see your kids shiver and give in preferring to ease their suffering and take the financial hit later. But spare a thought when you are cold for those in Braemar experiencing -17 degrees overnight and parts in the area without power for days. At least we have the option of heat.

There is though another part of me that questions my thinking when I remove the anger directed towards the fat cats in power who are obviously rigging the pricing- it is no lose for them and all big gain. I think to myself: how did it come to this? How for years and years did we not have to worry about putting on the heating in winter but now its a major issue. And by "we" I mean the collective "we" of all of us in that situation. It suggests a decline but is it? Is it more a case that we have gotten used to too many creature comforts. For example I remember when young sitting comfortable on the sofa and getting annoyed at being told to get up and switch the TV over. Remote controls came to take that problem away and then when even pressing a button got too much we developed voice activated control. And heating is the same. When I was of school age I remember being freezing in the morning walking about with a cover over me and praying someone would put on the electric fire. It never happened, or rarely, because of the costs. At best we got the light and its orange glow to give the impression of warmth. Is that any different from now? And it was worse then because most homes were only single glazed and draughty unlike now. Maybe we now expect too much. It is possible. There is that expectation on one hand but there still is on the other hand that very reasonable expectation that we would hope energy companies would not hold us to ransom but that feels very real at the moment in this cold snap.